Two tractor trailers hauling one piece of heavy equipment - photo

[Jon]

Two tractor trailers hauling one piece of heavy equipment.




Previously:

3 trucks transporting a 145-ton steel wire rope - video
World's largest cutting shear being transported - video
6 trucks transporting a 300-ton generator - GIF
Truck hauling heavy equipment uphill fails - GIF

[Frank S]

I first saw this picture about 10 or 12 years ago.
There are 2 things for certain.
1 they are not hauling very far
2 there is not a single overhead obstruction anywhere on their route the load is probably 25 ft high.
Also note there is not a single chain securing the load to either trailer

[hemmjo]

I want to watch them turn with that load. I also wonder how they are going to move the dump body.

[Tooler2]

Why not drive or tow it?

[Frank S]

Why not drive or tow it?

There are several reasons not to drive or tow.
but the main reason is believe it or not the concentrated weight would destroy most of the poorly constructed roads in the USA. The road would have to bare all of the weight at 2 points even though the diameter and width of the 6 tires would denote a huge amount of surface area contact the powers that be do not recognize this to be significant to not cause damage to a road surface. The inflation pressures could be lowered to a minimum then the actual surface area contact would equate to nearly 10 times the total surface area the truck would normally have but they still don't look at it that way.

[Wildwilly]

There are several reasons not to drive or tow.
but the main reason is believe it or not the concentrated weight would destroy most of the poorly constructed roads in the USA. The road would have to bare all of the weight at 2 points even though the diameter and width of the 6 tires would denote a huge amount of surface area contact the powers that be do not recognize this to be significant to not cause damage to a road surface. The inflation pressures could be lowered to a minimum then the actual surface area contact would equate to nearly 10 times the total surface area the truck would normally have but they still don't look at it that way.

So you are saying because of “transport laws” that it has to be transported this way? I don’t know what your laws are, but in my country that would be a “loose load” because I see nothing to secure the load to the transporters....VERY ILLEGAL...AND VERY COSTLY!

[Frank S]

So you are saying because of “transport laws” that it has to be transported this way? I don’t know what your laws are, but in my country that would be a “loose load” because I see nothing to secure the load to the transporters....VERY ILLEGAL...AND VERY COSTLY!

You can bet that that transport was done only from one mine site to another possibly only on a highway for a short period of time possibly across 1 or 2 counties, and not across country.
There may have been load securement which we can not see from the angle of the photo there doesn't appear to be any such visible securement on the outside of the trailer nearest in the photo How they would manage to chain the load to the outside of either trailer is beyond me.
If the load was going to have been hauled for any great distance then the truck would have been placed on a single trailer rig with possibly 16 to 20 axles , all of the tires and wheels would have been removed even possibly the differential the cab the fuel and hydraulic tank would have been removed as would the engine cover all of these would have been shipped as what we call fall off loads. Some would have still be oversized but weight legal
the beds are cut right down the middle and shipped as 2 loads They even do this at the factory after a unit is built and tested it is torn down cut up shipped then reassembled and welded back together.
The Eisenhower Interstate highway act was designed to alleviate much of the problems with cross country transport but they could not have anticipated how massively large equipment would one day become.
Some later developed countries have addressed this issue in part by not having overhead obstructions where ever possible or construction any overpass bridges to a minimum of 6 meters or more while insuring there are direct alternate bypasses. There are even some countries which have designed their what we call interstate highways to be capable of 50 tons per axle but have placed limits of 15 to 25 tons per axle.