Monster haul crawls from port to Oregon

8/25/2014
BY MARK REITER
BLADE STAFF WRITER
A reactor, followed by a third stage separator, are moved by the Deep South Heavy Lift and Transport Solutions company along Front Street in East Toledo. The machines, which weigh 999,000 pounds and 570,000 pounds, respectively, were on their way from the Port of Toledo to the Toledo Refining Co. on Woodville Road on Sunday.
A reactor, followed by a third stage separator, are moved by the Deep South Heavy Lift and Transport Solutions company along Front Street in East Toledo. The machines, which weigh 999,000 pounds and 570,000 pounds, respectively, were on their way from the Port of Toledo to the Toledo Refining Co. on Woodville Road on Sunday.

Some of the heaviest and largest loads to ply the streets of East Toledo made their way on special tractor-trailer platforms Sunday night from the Port of Toledo on Front Street to the Toledo Refinery Co. on Woodville Road.

The first of two superload trucks pulled out of the shipyard at 6:40 p.m. and soon was followed by a second monster shipment. Moving at a snail’s pace, the equipment was expected to reach the refinery just across the city in Oregon several hours later.

PHOTO GALLERY: Reactor and separator transport

The two pieces of equipment are both more than 31 feet tall and 25 feet wide and weigh 499½ and 285 tons.

A gold and blue banner, “Boilermakers Local 85 Toledo” hung from the front of the first load.

The route for transporting the shipments followed Front, under the Veterans’ Glass City Skyway bridge, to Oak Street, and Woodville.

Bill Waters of Maumee watched the monster shipment from a sidewalk on Front, near Craig Street.

“It is interesting to see how they move something this big,” he said. “All the electrical lines have to be removed or lifted. The coordination, planning, and execution is quite interesting,”

Traffic was stopped as the monster loads traveled slowly down Front, stopping occasionally to allow utility workers to lift wires that hung over the street.

Other wires, mostly those supplying electricity to street lights, were too low to be raised and had to be disconnected and later reattached.

“We are going to be moving along, then stopping, moving along, and then stopping,” Toledo Police Officer Timothy Tighe said.

Workers removed steel poles holding traffic signals from their bases. They had to be reinstalled after the caravan had passed. The equipment — more than three stories tall — were a third-stage separator and a petroleum reactor.

Contact Mark Reiter at: markreiter@theblade.com or 419-724-6199.