Spotlight Transport By Seth Skydel
Experience, Communication and the Right Equipment
For the Shell Refinery specialized transport job, NessCampbell moved four 245-foot long, 600,000-pound reactors 30 miles from the Port of Richmond to a refinery in Martinez, California.
Experience counts in the heavy haul industry and NessCampbell has it in abundance. For more than 75 years, the company has been meeting the specialized transportation needs of customers across the Pacific Northwest. Today, it serves clients in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and nationwide from eight locations.
The key to NessCampbell’ s success handling heavy hauls is the ability to support all phases of a project.
“ It comes down to experience, communication and the right equipment,” said Don Schimmel, specialized haul project manager.“ It starts with communicating with customers to have the right information from the beginning. That’ s what lets us plan moves effectively and safely and provide the right equipment.”
Meeting a Challenge
NessCampbell’ s goal is always to exceed customer expectations and that was exactly the case when Shell Refinery recommended the company to DSV Global Transport and Logistics to move four 245-foot long, 600,000-pound reactors 30 miles from the Port of Richmond to a refinery in Martinez, California.
NessCampbell encountered numerous challenges during this project, not the least of which was how to transport the
large and heavy reactors across the San Francisco Bay area. For example, the ideal route they planned involved traveling the wrong direction on I-680 for two miles to get to the refinery.
Simultaneously, the timeframe for offloading the four reactors from a ship, transporting them over the road one at a time, and offloading and staging them at the refinery was a tight two and a half weeks.
With their engineering and planning, transportation and hauling, and rigging and equipment operation teams in place, NessCampbell worked with people in key positions within the Port of Richmond and state agencies to find viable solutions.
Helped by an early arrival of the ship, route approval, police escorts, utility crews to move obstacles and a range of specialized transport equipment, all four reactors were on site and on the ground two weeks before the specified dropdead date.
An Expansive Fleet
The NessCampbell fleet includes more than 90 trucks and tractors consisting of heavy haul power units and Oshkosh prime movers in 50-, 150- and 250-ton capacities.
A wide range of types and sizes of trailers are used in NessCampbell heavy haul operations. In the fleet are standard flatbed trailers capable of carrying up to 35 tons in 38- to 53-foot lengths.
Step deck( or single drop) trailers with two to four axles in 40- to 53-foot lengths are equipped with top and bottom decks for handling certain types of cargo that wouldn’ t meet highway height restrictions on a flatbed.
The highest capacity trailers in the NessCampbell fleet, ideal for heavy-cargo
30 CRANE HOT LINE ® July 2024 • www. cranehotline. com