The Heavies 2020 winners

Kings Heavy Haulage

Kings Heavy Haulage collect the Job of the Year CAT1 award for their movement of the Messenger Statue at 8.793 x 5.532 x 7.40 and 10000kgs. Carried out between the Brittany Ferry Terminal to the Theatre Royal Plymouth, this project involved Theatre Royal staff, statue specialists, Devonport Dockyard, shipping, craneage, haulage, traffic management, Plymouth Council, Devon & Cornwall Constabulary.

“Very good teamwork and planning, always far more difficult working in the public eye. A spectacular but awkward task, requiring care and precision. Big statues are generally not designed to be moved!”

Intake Transport

Intake Transport successfully conveyed Brayford footbridge from its site of manufacture in Wishaw, Lanarkshire to its site of installation at Brayford Wharf, Lincoln. The entire operation required transporting the footbridge across the country in order for the structure to be delivered and assembled within its city centre location. This was a challenging job as the size, architecture and composition of the footbridge meant that thorough planning, expertise, and teamwork was required.

“A clear winner. This job was a unique challenge requiring careful planning and co-ordinated movements of three very awkward loads. Further challenges were presented at the delivery point requiring adherence to a very strict timetable.”

Hallett Silbermann

The project involved the delivery and extraction of a 79 tonne Liebherr LB36 piling rig to site directly in front of Admiralty Arch. The job entailed multi-stage delivery via Hallett’s yard in Hatfield before undertaking the final stage to achieve a timed delivery. Being a CAT 3 STGO move and having to make the approach via The Mall, this meant having to pass as quietly as possible below HRH’s bedroom window in the early hours of a cold February morning.

“Taking any oversize load into London always presents challenges for the haulier. The weight of the cargo and the delivery location created even more potential issues. Fortunately, this operator has been moving heavy loads around the capital for generations.”

GCS Johnson

GCS Johnson transported a tunnel boring machine from AV Dawson’s site in Middlesbrough to the Sirius Mining Project at Wilton, near Redcar. This involved transporting four loads all of which were over 6.1m wide. In addition, the main section of the machine measured 6.3m diameter x 4.5m high and weighed 200 tonnes.

“Very good planning. A fine example of a specialist operator working very closely with the customer and other organisations to find a practical cost-effective solution to accessing a weight-limited location, by clever deployment of its equipment fleet.”

Sarens

The Churchill Way Flyovers located in Liverpool city centre required removal due to their structural integrity being compromised. This consisted of 20 sections weighing up to 600Te, 30m long by 12m wide and up to 13m above ground level.

This entire project involved SPMT’s, spacer frames, steelwork, jacking towers, climbing jacks, crawler cranes and telescopic cranes. Starting in September 2019 and fully completed by December 2019, Sarens solution was the best for the project, one which was fully engineered, mobilized and executed within the time frame.

Fastrans Logistik Ltd

Sean formed Fastrans Logistik Ltd back in 2013. With just one escort van at the beginning, he has worked tremendously hard, and now stands as one of the largest privately owned pilot car escort operators with a fleet of 11 vans.

Today sees the team moving, in what the company firmly believes is the best direction. Alongside their abnormal load management service, Fastrans also expanded their fleet of pilot escort vehicles and focused on delivering a comprehensive range of services. These include site surveys, route planning, permit applications and a range of services.

“This operator obviously works to a very high standard for a wide range of clients in some of the most demanding sectors. The role of the escort driver is ever more important with modern-day traffic volumes.”

Allelys

As they say, from acorns grow oaks, and that certainly is the story of Allelys. Founded in 1959 by Maurice Allely, the company specialised in livestock transport across the whole of the UK. Little did he know that his sons, Pete, Dave & Rob would take the company and develop it in to one of the UK’s leading specialist multimodal transport companies.

“This very old-established operator has learned to adapt to the changing marketplace. The close-knit team of both employees and family members work together as one, undertaking a wide range of demanding transport tasks. The pride taken in the operation is aptly demonstrated by the extremely well-turned out fleet of vehicles and equipment, which is a pleasure to see out working.”

Sarens

The SGC-250 is the first of the 3rd generation of ring-based cranes at Sarens. It has a maximum load moment of 250.000Tm which allows lifting an astonishing 5.000T. Even at a large radius of 100m, the crane is still capable of lifting 2.000T and, even when doing so, the ground pressure remains below 25T/m2. This extremely impressive metric is achieved through the high number of wheel bogies on the double ring beams and the spreader mats that the machine features.

“As big as it gets. A tremendous engineering achievement and solution to accommodate a nationally important infrastructure project. Very few specialists could even contemplate designing and building a machine of this size and complexity.”

Allelys

Allelys have chosen and implemented the Core R.F.I.D Tagging System. Each item of plant or lifting accessory, be it a mobile crane, Hiab, fork lift truck, lifting chain, sling, shackle, swivel eye, each has an identification number and a scannable tag fitted.

“The adoption of the Core Radio-Frequency Identification tagging system has allowed the company to not only confirm the location of all of equipment inventory, from the largest lifting gantry to the smallest shackle, wherever they are, but to immediately confirm that they are safe to use through the confirmation of the relevant test and inspection certificates. This represents a major advance in operational safety, which is of benefit to everyone.”

Cometto

The Eco1000 compact vehicle is available with 2, 4 and 6 axle lines, they can be combined up to 4 units with interchangeable components, a wide selection of accessories and different Power Pack technologies: traditional propulsion technology for continuous performance, hybrid or the electric solution.

“A very advanced concept that has great potential in many fields. The growth of Low Emission Zones in many major cities means that heavy transport operators will almost certainly have to look towards this type of equipment in the future.”

Goldhofer

The new generation of self-tracking semi lowloaders combines Goldhofer’s proven high standard of engineering with attractive terms plus practical details such as an intelligent load securing system. With the user-friendly self-tracking semi lowloaders in the STEPSTAR series, they are ideally equipped for everyday haulage operations with payloads of up to 70 t.

Nooteboom

Latest and largest Nooteboom 4+6 low-loader has been optimised for the German regulations: an axle load of 12 tonnes at 80km/h, so that loads of 100 tonnes can be transported efficiently in and to Germany.

“A high-capacity trailer to meet the operational requirements of its customer, the task of moving heavy loads on a deteriorating road system at relatively high road speeds. Minimising imposed axle weights required original thinking. Keeping the design and operation of the trailer relatively simple and making it interchangeable with the operator’s existing trailer fleet increased the challenge dramatically. Nooteboom met the objectives perfectly, the result is a happy customer!”