Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/85429
severe service Kenworth T800s spec'd for super-heavy haul with 550-hp engines and 18-speed transmissions backed by a 4-speed auxiliary transported these massive coke drums on custom trailers. Each rig had another T800 push- ing the 702,000-lb. load behind it during the slow-going moves. 'Lewis and Clark' finish heavy haul an you imagine a haul that requires four years of planning? That's the time heavy haulers with Oregon-based Emmert International put into planning and executing a move earlier this year of two massive barrel- shaped coke drums for ConocoPhillips. After trav- eling from Lewiston, Idaho, 700 miles east to the company's oil refinery in Billings, Mont., the drums are part of a $50 million upgrade of the refinery due to be completed this fall. C "The coke drum moves presented us with one of the most challenging routes ever faced by a heavy trans- port company," company founder Terry Emmert says. Remarkable is the custom design work Emmert put into the two trailers, dubbed Lewis and Clark: 226-foot- long, 32-axle, 128-wheel trailers distributing top and bottom sections of each shipment evenly. The nicknames stemmed from the loads following part of the exploratory trail of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The first shipment, which left in February 2011, encountered winter weather that delayed its arrival until April 2011. The second was delayed by high runoff from the Yellowstone River that flooded the U.S. 12 bridge. It finally made Billings on Aug. 4, marking the end of the historic haul. APRIL 2012 OVERDRIVE 39