[ARC5] Somewhat OT: RE: How delivery services treat our radio packages.

[Gene Smar]

Indirectly related to the subject but concerning transportation of large
cargo:

When I worked at an electric utility company in the early 1980s (that's
important), one of our generating plants suffered a failure in a generator
main step-up transformer phase.  That is, one of the three separate
transformers that connected the 3 phases of the generator output (total of
1500 MVA or so) to the grid failed and caught fire.  Not really disastrous -
we had a spare at another power plant 80 miles away.  (Our company built 3
large, identical generating plants simultaneously and had a spare step-up
transformer phase unit stored at one of the other plants.)

Out traffic department called up (no email in those days) the local railroad
office to arrange for a Schnabel (low-rider) railroad car
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnabel_car to pick up the spare transformer
tank and haul it 80 miles to the failed plant.  "No can do," we were told.
Penn Central (I think) was the railroad carrier that had taken the original
units and the spare to their final resting places back in the early 70s.  In
the intervening years, that carrier went bust and the tracks for over half
the distance  between the spare and the failed units had been dismantled.
Doha!

To finish the story, our traffic folks had to arrange with another carrier
to take the spare unit into Canada and back, a distance of over 3,000 track
miles, to arrive at the failed transformer from another direction.


73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F
P.S.  My group at the utility were asked to investigate whether we could
transport future transformer tanks via dirigible!  But that's another story
that involved the US Navy and the Dept of Interior.


-----Original Message-----
From: arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On
Behalf Of Craig via ARC5
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2020 3:10 PM
To: arc5 at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [ARC5] How delivery services treat our radio packages.


We had an empty crate being returned to us that got destroyed on the trip.
Weighs about 25 tons empty and is 14 feet wide. Ships on an extended lowboy
due to height restrictions. Driver couldn't be bothered to with permits.
Tried to squeeze thru some newly placed jersey walls in some highway
construction at high speed. 14 foot wide loads won't go thru 11 foot wide
openings, even at 75 mph. Over 60K$ and 3 months to repair the crate.
Insurance totaled the truck and the new lowboy the crate was on. It was the
only load that freight company ever hauled for us, and they had just won the
contract to make this run both directions with a 50 trip guarantee.

Craig


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