Texas A&M ENGINEERING WORKS - Heavy Duty Road Trip

Just about everybodys taken a road trip at some point in their lives. Vacation. Visiting relatives in another state. Finding yourself. This trip was more ambitious than any of those.

First, when we say heavy-duty, were not kidding. This road trip moved a 900,000 pound electric generator from the Port of Houston to a power plant under construction near a small town in central Texas about 250 miles away. The generator itself was about 20 feet high and almost 40 feet long. That's pretty impressive, all by itself.

But it's just the beginning. The generator rode on a two-part heavy hauler. Together, the two parts were about 300-feet long and rolled along on almost 300-tires. Imagine a 30-foot-wide slice of a football field, rolling down the highway. Generator and carrier together weighed almost 2,000,000 pounds. Nine hundred tons.

If you were looking for speed, this wasn't the trip for you. Generator and hauler rolled down the highway at less than 10 miles an hour. It was pushed and pulled along by four diesel tractors, kind of like the ones that pull semi-trailers, but bigger. Planning the trip took about six months and it took about a month to get the generator to it's new home.

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• heavy
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• generator