(By Greg Rourke) – Have you ever been asked to help a friend move? Sure you have, silly question. And did that friend have a hide-a-bed that weighed a metric ton, and as you were carrying it up the the third floor your friend lost their grip and dropped that end, therefore causing you to drop your end? Yeah, well this is muchmuch worse.
The GT46C locomotive is manufactured in Australia using Electro Motive components made in the United States. It weighs 270,000 pounds, or roughly three times the weight of a hide-a-bed I once owned. It’s being unloaded from a ship onto the dock, using what appears to some substantial rigging. Apparently the weight rating for the rigging was just shy of what the locomotive weighed, and much like your friend with the sofa the loco got dropped. In spectacular fashion. And what was very recently a brand new very expensive piece of railroad machinery is now likely useful only for parts.
Aaaaaaargh!
I have heard the voice of Satan himself in the slow-mo part of the video!
He was saying “Get a roll on roll off ship equipped to transport all things that run on rails”.
It never ceases to amaze me when I see the expensive stuff that is dropped from cranes. Common sense would say go above and beyond on the rigging.
Guess that shit happens when you convert pounds to kilograms. How many zeros?
Shit’ll buff out.
Double up on the string….
I have years of experience designing heavy rigging lifts. First off, you take the weight of 270,000 lbs and add 20% to add a little comfort room. Based on that we are figuring a load of 324,000 lbs. This is four point lift and I am assuming it is a balanced load so that is 81,000 per corner. Assuming a 1.5″ wire rope choker is being used (my calibrated eyeballs did the measuring) the choker is good for 21 tons safe working load so you have a sling capacity of 84,000 lbs per corner. This is pretty close but will work with smooth handling of the load. Now, add in that you are working at a port with salt air and the wire rope slings are probably corroded which will reduce their capacity and now you have this recipe for disaster. Because of this I would have designed the lift using kevlar slings. I hope the rigger had a good insurance policy.
Uhhh Boss, I had something come up at home. I am going to have to take a personal day.
Uhhh Boss, I had something come up at home. I am going to have to take a personal day. By the way Boss, how much is that train worth?