Sega Inc. and Empire District Electric Co approached Taylor Crane & Rigging in January of 2006 with a challenging move. A 300 ton generator and a 250 ton turbine needed relocated from a rail site to their new foundation.

The original plan of work was simple and straight forward; however, a couple problems evolved during the project. First, the original rail delivery spur, only three miles from the Empire’s construction site, was discovered to be insufficient to handle delivery of the heavy rail car loads. The best alternative plan was to build a costly new rail spur in Columbus, KS eighteen miles from the site. However, the new route also included a major obstacle, crossing a 15 ton capacity county bridge.

The second problem concerned access to the equipments’ new foundations.  Construction issues required access from the side of the foundation instead of the ends as originally planned. This required jacking and lifting the turbine and generator from the ends, which would require a longer and substantially stronger lifting beam than TCR had in its arsenal. 
With some quick thinking, Taylor realized both problems could be solved with some modification and fabrication to a trailer deck in its fleet. The trailer deck, if extended, could be used as a “bridge jumper” to cross the bridge. The deck could also be modified to be used as a lifting beam to solve the foundation access problem.

Sega and Empire awarded the project to TCR with only six weeks to prepare for the job. Preparation included design, structural engineering, fabrication, and installation of the mobile ‘bridge jumper’. Also, matting and widening several county road intersections, cribbing several box culverts, leasing a heavy haul modular hydraulic transport unit, and permitting with state and county entities. Taylor was liable for any problems or structural damage to the county’s bridge and roads and the state’s highway. 

With a multitude of people working together the job went as planned, without incident or injury and to everyone’s complete satisfaction, especially the clients Sega and Empire.

The Kansas Dept of Transportation determined that the super load movement of the generator, with a gross weight of 788,590 pounds on 19 axles, was the heaviest load ever moved on county and state roads in Kansas to date.

Read more in client testimonials:
Letter of Award: John Culbertson, P.E. - Bridge Evaluation - Squad Leader
Comments from Blake Mertens, Manager of Strategic Projects - Empire District Electric Company