Volume 10 Issue 4
JULY/AUGUST 2019 $5.00
INFRASTRUCTURE
T R A N S P O R TAT I O N
Masco develops cranes for Groat Road Bridge renovation
Ring crane hoists record highway deliveries
One side of the Groat Road Bridge remains open while the Masco’s Goliath Outdoor Gantry Cranes perform their work on the other side.
B Y S AU L C H E R N O S
Goliath Outdoor Gantry Cranes designed specifically for unique bridge work B Y M AT T J O N E S
I
n 2018, the city of Edmonton announced a major three-year renovation plan for one of the busiest river crossings in the city, the Groat Road Bridge. The bridge, which spans 330 metres across the Fort Saskatchewan River, had been
constructed in 1955 and it has been almost 30 years since the last major work on the bridge. The construction is expected to extend the service life of the bridge by at least 50 years and to improve the functionality of existing sidewalks by widening them.
continued on page 10
R E G U L AT I O N S
Shockwaves
How crane incidents in other areas affect Canadian industry
M
ammoet, a global provider of engineered heavy lift services, is using cranes, hydraulic jacks and massive trailers with hundreds of wheels to help deliver several of the heaviest loads ever transported on Alberta highways. The loads — six in all — involve enormous mechanical and processing units for a new $3.5-billion polypropylene manufacturing plant in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. The Heartland Petrochemical Complex, a processing plant owned by Calgary-based Inter Pipeline, will convert propane into plastic pellets for use in everything from computers and automotive parts to food containers and clothing. Crews literally got rolling January 6 in Edmonton at Dacro Industries, a fabricator of resource industry equipment. Using four 300-tonne capacity hydraulic climbing jacks operating in tandem, they loaded a 97-metre-tall, 820-tonne tube-shaped propane propylene splitter onto the high-end InterCombi trailers. Not only is the splitter the heaviest of the six loads Mammoet is shipping over the road for Inter Pipeline, but the provincial transportation ministry confirmed publicly this “historic super load” is the heaviest ever carried on Alberta highways. continued on page 8
B Y M AT T J O N E S
O
n April 27, a crane working on a Google office building in Seattle collapsed onto the street below, crushing six cars and killing four people. The incident attracted major attention. As news outlets such as CNN and Global broadcast video of the Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan vowing to ensure that cranes in the city are safe, the grainy dash-cam footage of the crash was being analyzed on a variety of social media platforms. In the modern media age, the shockwaves from a crane crashing onto the street are likely to travel further than ever. As the official investigation into the causes of the collapse continues, how often does the fallout from an incident such as this impact industry in other jurisdictions? continued on page 16
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“The unfortunate thing about regulatory requirements is they all seem to be written in blood.” – Fraser Cocks, executive director, British Columbia Association for Crane Safety