Heavy Lifts & Big Trucks

I spent some time in a fabrication yard last week to witness and participate in the testing of some newly built equipment. This stuff is special, custom-built equipment for subsea pipelines. It will be installed thousands of feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico, and we must be sure that it all fits together and operates correctly.

testing in progress

Testing like this always goes about the same: slow. I had some time to check out the other work going on in the fab. yard (work not related to our job).

Jo Ann
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This is a heavy duty Pacific truck/tractor helping move a Goldhöfer hydraulic platform trailer. The load on the trailer is some sort of large steel framework/foundation. I didn't find out what it was for.

This is the first time I've seen a truck like that, and I had to do a little bit of research on it. Turns out, Pacific built large, heavy duty trucks like this for a long while but are now out of business. There's a great write up of Pacific's history here. Apparently, what's left of the company is now part of this place, which should help keep old Pacifics, like Jo Ann, running for a long while.

Jo Ann is operated by Palletized Trucking of Houston.

Below is a different truck and trailer combo being loaded out with a part of a very large pressure vessel (or a piece of some sort of vessel for the refining industry, most likely).

Pressure Vessel Load-Out
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The truck is a Peterbilt. My wife's brother is an engineer and works for them. So, this one's for you, Clint.

Peterbilt Loaded and Ready
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