Felbermayr transports 294 tonne generator

Specialized transport and lifting company Felbermayr transported a generator weighing 294 tonnes from the Linz heavy load port in Austria to a power station in Hungary. A key player in this transport project was the heavy goods vessel, Horst Felix, a dry freighter converted to a heavy goods vessel.

For the first part of its journey the generator, 12 metres long and 5 m wide, was transported 800 kilometres from the Siemens site in Mülheim on the Ruhr in Germany to the Linz heavy load port in Austria. The journey took 13 days. Horst Felix was used for the second part of the journey from the Linz port to the power station in Hungary to avoid road tolls and weight restrictions on bridges.

When the generator arrived at Linz it was transferred onto a 1.5 coupled heavy low-loader trailer with 12 axles before being moved onto the vessel. According to Peter Niedermair-Auer, Felbermayr project manager, this vehicle was chosen because of the generator’s weight and dimensions.

Having been designed as a ro-ro ship, Horst Felix was an ideal choice for the project. Niedermair-Auer explains, “With a specially designed bow and a loading ramp, the road transporter could drive onto the ship directly. Because of these ideal conditions the rolling on took little more than an hour.”

Two heavy duty tractor units, with 650 and 800 hp, plus the 12-axle trailer, were used to transport the generator onto the vessel. The heavy load tractors were ballasted with 40 tonnes each to guarantee the necessary traction. This combination of vehicles was decided because it optimised the load distribution. Together with the low loader, which weighed 70 tonnes, the total weight of the transport was 444 tonnes.

After three days of travelling, Horst Felix arrived at the port in Hungary which was around 300 km from Linz. As an extra safety precaution for the roll-off process, a second tractor unit was used in addition to the shunting and tractor units. The alternative to this would have been to unload the generator with a large lattice boom crane, explained Niedermair-Auer.

The distance to the power station from the port was 5 kilometres. Once it arrived at the power station’s storage area, the 294 tonne generator was unloaded and placed in interim storage prior to installation.