30


Issue 3 2013


///HEAVY LIFT Thinking big:


heavy-liſt transport


weathers the storm The recession that has gripped the freight industry has also caught up with the heavy-liſt and project segment of the market. But specialist operators are weathering the storm – with a little help from the wind.


Van der Vlist moves mountain mover


Moving a vast Terex dump truck from the UK to France was among the more challenging tasks that abnormal load transport specialist Van der Vlist recently took on. The 56-tonne, 10.8m long and 4.9m high machine need to be moved from Motherwell to Callas in Southern France. VDV UK managed the UK


leg along with the permits and escorts. The machine was then shipped on a ro-ro sailing from Teesport to Zeebrugge and moved to the French border. Then the problems really began.


“It’s always a challenge when you have something large to move across France,” explains sales and marketing manager, Neil Keeping. Whereas the regulations on


moving goods by road in most of Northern Europe are fairly simple - in the UK, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany they rarely change – France and Italy are a completely different ball game, says Keeping: “You generally have to stick to the non-motorway routes nationales in France, which makes things difficult for a start; you then have different authorities or


regions


taking a different view of abnormal load movements, so, where one region agrees, another may reject it. Permits can sometimes take up to 10 or 12 weeks, so it can be extremely challenging.” Van der Vlist gets to move


almost anything and everything - statues, sports vehicles, helicopters, boats, crash tenders, trains, tubes, boxes, crates, reels - even an aeroplane, Keeping continues. It’s a hard market to gauge, though: “There is never really any pattern, it


is always up and down. At the moment it


is more up so we can only hope that this continues. The market is obviously competitive which is impacting on prices. However, these are complex movements and cargo we are dealing with so it is not easy for a client to compromise quality for price.” Mobile equipment is always an


important portion of the business, mainly for the construction and agricultural industries. The other area is energy and in general “literally anything and everything relating to energy production seems to be looking positive - oil, gas, wind, bio mass, nuclear...we hope it’s the shape of things for the next few years,” Keeping states. The company recently invested


in its Russian operation to ensure the stability of its facility in St Petersburg, which VDV now owns outright. “In the long term this will lead to greater capabilities and increases levels of equipment all round.” Russia is an important market


for VDV, along with the US, Africa and south east Asia. Last year as a group VDV dealt with clients based in 40 different countries while its activities spanned no fewer than 168 nations. Despite the difficulties


of


operating there, VDV is also exploring the possibility of opening an office in France, Keeping adds: “It is a growing market for us and over the coming years we need to increase capacity in this region too deal with demand.” In the UK, road remains


the most cost effective way of transporting most abnormal loads. Keeping says: “Provided the cargo is not too large and heavy we can move around the country fairly


Recent Van der Vlist moves included a complete nitrogen factory from China to Pulawy, eastern Poland. The 14 pieces, up to 53.5 metres long, had a combined weight of 3019 tonnes. The parts were shipped to Poland from China on barges, and then transported on modular trailers by road to their destination. The sheer size of the loads meant that the road infrastructure had to be dismantled in places, and the convoy was escorted throughout by police vehicles as well as Van der Vlist’s own


easily by working closely with the authorities. We are fairly lucky in the UK as motorway bridges are generally 4.95 metres high - nearly a metre higher than Holland and Germany - and there is also the possibility of certain high load routes as well. However, once you start getting up to loaded transport dimensions of 5m wide or 31m long or over 150 tonnes you are getting into the realms of special orders and will be asked to move to the nearest suitable waterway for onward transport.” Shipping, is of course


important for an international transport company importing and exporting to and from the UK. VDV has a trimodal terminal at Moerdijk in the Netherlands,


which is ideal for receiving small chartered vessels from the UK. Moerdijk is also ideal for storing cargo securely and for transhipment for onward transport to vessel, truck or rail. VDV works with the major


trailer manufacturers on an ongoing basis


to increase


loading capabilities, for example by reducing the weight of the trailer to allow it to carry a heavier load or changing the design or axle layout of a trailer to allow the load to travel closer to the ground to reduce the overall height. Keeping adds: “We are currently working on a number of secret projects, so keep an eye out later in the year for our new trailers.”


convoy vehicles. The company also received a 120 ton Komatsu excavator, in 10 separate pieces that needed to be assembled at Bremanger quarry in Norway. The Dutch experts partly assembled the machine in their workshop and then shipped it by river barge and across the north sea to the west-Norwegian quarry, in temperatures of -22,5°C.


Flying boats – and planes


Two 14-ton, 13 metre long cutter vessels took to the air from Aquaba in Jordan to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on board one of Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ AN-124- 100 freighters. Volga-Dnepr has extensive


experience of transporting boats and submersibles around the world, including yachts, submarines and patrol boats, which oſten oſten require detailed planning, engineering and special handling and loading equipment. In this case, the boats were too big for standard loading cranes so Volga-Dnepr’s load planning experts used a rail


system to safely place the Amie and Bridie boats into the aircraſt’s cargo hold. Each boat weighed 14 tons and


was more than 13 metres long and four metres high. The flight to Tanzania was on


behalf of the global air charter specialists, Chapman Freeborn. And when it is not busy with


boats, Volga-Dnepr has also been carrying planes. One of its AN-124-100 freighters moved an 11.5 metre long fuselage section for the new Irkut MS-21 Russian passenger aircraſt between Irkutsk and Zhukovsky on 25 February.


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