COMMENT Ӏ OCTOBER 2025
BUILDING BRIDGES AND MAKING LINKS
There’s a distinct theme running throughout this issue of Cranes Today. It’s to do with what I think is one of the most visually pleasing items of infrastructure: bridges. As house writer Julian Champkin Points out in our bridges
feature (starting page 24), bridges have been used by man for a long time; long before recorded history. It is likely, for example, that early humans made simple natural bridges by using fallen trees, vines or stepping stones across streams. Today’s bridge building ventures are very different utilising
cutting-edge techniques and equipment to construct them. The article highlights the diversity of possible approaches available to engineers working on bridge projects of all sizes. A popular crane type used for building bridges, however, is the crawler crane. Its combination of heavy lifting capacities, versatility, reach, plus stability and mobility on rough ground makes it a ‘go to’ tool for bridge projects worldwide. So for this issue’s crawler crane feature we've focussed on a selection of bridge builds that utilised crawler cranes. I'll admit I was tempted to also include a bridge project as our
‘Job of the Month’, too, simply because these projects are so impressive. Ultimately, though, I opted for a different type of ‘bridge’ – namely the renewal of bridge cranes in Liebherr's
MENTIONED IN THIS ISSUE: ALL Family of Companies
Artes
Balfour Beatty VINCI (BBV) Bridging North America (BNA) Broderson
Carver Marine Comansa EKFB
Faymonville Group Franna
Global Data Griffiths
22 36 30 25 22 32 24 31 18 20 16 28
Guizhou Bridge Construction Group 26
mobile and crawler crane production halls in Ehingen. I've actually been to the production hall a number of times and seeing the massive overhead travelling cranes ‘in the metal’ is always amazing. I also loved the idea of mobile cranes returning to work at the place they were created so, ultimately, this jobsite story won our coveted ‘JotM’ spot. If you're interested in overhead cranes I recommend our sister title Hoist (
www.hoistmagazine.com) which comprehensively covers this sector. In a final piece of link related serendipity, just as we were going to press I received news of the new Tadano GTC-600-2 telecrawler (page 11) launching in the US. Reagan Bull, COO at Tadano Mantis, identifies bridge work as a key application area for the new crane. And with just enough space for one news story this was the perfect fit, linking the bridge, crawler, and regional report themes of this issue in one current news item. So there we have it: bridges, crawler cranes, The Americas, and latest crane news all seamlessly linked in one glossy package of crane awesomeness. See you next month!
Christian Shelton, Editor
Christian.Shelton@
btmi.com
Guizhou ShengYongSheng Grove
IOC Company
Lampson International Liebherr
Link-Belt Cranes Mammoet Manitowoc MAX Trailer
Maxim Crane Works Potain
Rieger & Moser Sarens
26 21 41 21
8, 21, 22, 34, 38 41, 42 16, 30 26
Schmidbauer Sennebogen
Skanska-Traylor JV Tadano
Tadano Mantis Corp.
Gordie Howe International Bridge Project
The Rothen Group
18 Walsh Group 21 WASEL 26 8
34 8
36 32 11 11
24 26 16 38
Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority 25
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