Who’s the only firm that could take the strain at the Liverpool docks?
Sectors:
Using: SERIES 38 – Steel C/W Bevelled Edge and SALLY
Something that anyone who has seen the truly massive portside container cranes at Liverpool 2 Docks may not have considered is how they got there.
Had you asked us before this project, we might have assumed that they were assembled on site, out of locally prefabricated sections. But this was not the case.
Like a lot of engineering plant, they were made in China and shipped to the U.K as whole. For the voyage they were in fact welded to the deck of the ship (see photo). As an aside, I wouldn’t fancy being aboard that ship in any kind of poor weather with a load like that !
So once alongside, there was just the small matter of getting thousands of tonnes of equipment worth millions of pounds, safely off the deck and the 31.70 metres across the paved dockside and securely into the rails. The client, in the interests of preserving the valuable new port that had spent months and years constructing, contacted us to provide a heavy duty way of mitigating the loads transfer from ship to shore.
Once we were abreast of the issues, a resolution was quickly reached and 150 tonnes of SERIES 38, including some custom made elements to make the precise distance required for the runway, were sorted and despatched to site post haste.
Ultimately, the trouble the client took was well spent. The Chinese installation crew were fighting with short windows of opportunity due to very bad weather and hadn’t worked with tides of the speed and reach found on the West coasts of the UK in Autumn. So when they moved each unit, it had go quickly, but smoothly. Ultimately aided in spades by our plating install.
“Thanks to the team at roadplatehire. You are the only firm in the country with the SERIES 38 heavy duty plates. The right specification to stand 5 very heavy and valuable Panamax dock cranes on whilst the site works are completed. In addition, your speedy delivery was vital to the success of this project.”
Stephen ‘Doc’ Docherty,
BAM Nuttall Ltd
Liverpool 2 Site, Port of Liverpool