STORM2K

I swear, Phoenix is DOOMED NOT to have enough POWER.....I can't BELIEVE this

http://www.azcentral.com

Accident stalls vital electrical equipment

Associated Press

A 400,000-pound transformer is shown after it fell off a tractor trailer Saturday, July 24, 2004, during transportation through Victorville, Calif. The load was being transported from Long Beach, Calif., to Phoenix. The incident closed Highway 18.

APS transformer stuck on highway

Laura Houston and Josh Kelley
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 25, 2004 12:00 AM


An electrical transformer meant to relieve some of the Valley's power problems is stuck in transit indefinitely on a California highway, officials said Saturday.

The transformer's journey has been postponed until APS officials and their contracted hauling company, Precision Heavy Haul, are sure the transformer is undamaged. When it has been stabilized, the approximately 400,000-pound load can continue its slow journey, APS spokesman Damon Gross said. The truck moves at no more than 10 mph.

Until then, the Valley must wait out a critically low power supply and conserve energy in anticipation of rolling blackouts. This has been the case since part of the Westwing Substation burned July 4.

In Glendale, meanwhile, Banner Thunderbird Medical Center lost power Saturday for the second time in less than a week, forcing the hospital to go to backup generators.

One of the main generators that powered the air-conditioning went down in the afternoon, causing temperatures to soar to 90 degrees in some parts of the hospital that had 310 to 330 patients. Larson said scheduled surgeries had been canceled, and one neonatal patient was transferred, possibly because of the heat.

Gross said a 3,000-amp breaker attached to power lines malfunctioned, creating a break in the power system feeding the hospital. The damaged equipment belonged to the hospital, not APS, he said. All electricity was automatically cut and generators kicked in to power the hospital, Glendale Deputy Fire Chief Elio Pompa said.

Gross said a full supply of electrical power was feeding the hospital before the breaker malfunctioned. There was no evidence that a power shortage in the system caused the hospital's outage, which was the case Tuesday after a fire at a Deer Valley substation.

APS brought in a semi-truck with a generator to compensate for the faulty generator.

In the California incident, Gross said reports from the rural site are inconclusive, making a prognosis difficult.

A shift in the transformer's tremendous weight on the truck's 282-foot trailer jeopardized the journey to Phoenix about 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

The road's grade and shoulder, along with the transformer's immense weight, strained the hauler's trailer and shifted the transformer, Gross said.


Dennis

Here's where you learn not to believe everything you read, although I'm sure the rest of the article is close to accurate:

article wrote:"A shift in the transformer's tremendous weight on the truck's 282-foot trailer jeopardized the journey to Phoenix about 10:30 a.m. Saturday. "

Has to be a typo... 282-foot trailer ???
Impossible... 75' is the max I can find for trailer length:

http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/truck ... krouts.htm

http://www.tea.army.mil/DEP/TRANSPORT/m ... /conus.htm


Was it too heavy to fly? 400,000 lbs?

The C-5 is the biggest aircraft I know of, specs:

Length 247 feet, 10 inches (75.3 meters).

Maximum Takeoff Weight 769,000 pounds (346,500 kilograms).
Maximum Wartime Takeoff Weight 840,000 pounds (378,000 kilograms).
Operating Weight 374,000 lb
Max Payload, 2.5g 216,000 lb
Max Payload, 2.25g 261,000 lb

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... -specs.htm

It couldn't be disassembled for transport? To me, that truck idea at 10mph was crazy from the getgo.

nice pics, no info:
http://www.ntsb.gov/events/symp_air_car ... 1_NACA.pdf

Does the word "Oversize Load" ring a bell?

I'm sure you will see yet another issue related to power here in the valley of the sun in the days or weeks ahead if the monsoon gets livelier.

We'll be having localized outages caused by lightning strikes, downed power poles, and similar problems, too.

No Kiko, that's NOT a typo....the trailer is a special made trailer just for this particular transformer, click on the link

http://www.azcentral.com

then click on the story, there you'll see a photo of the transformer off the road, my BIG question, is HOW THE HECK are they gonna get this thing back ON the trailer?

Dennis

Actually, here's the picture:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0725power25.html

Wow, that is a pretty crazy idea. My thoughts would be that they would dissassemble it, and then try to transport it. A 282-foot trailer going at 10 mph on a freeway?!

Just saw this too, Snowman. Dirty birds?

Nuclear Plant Goes To The Birds
MESA, Ariz., July 21, 2004


Bird droppings may have short-circuited a unit at the largest nuclear power complex in the United States, causing the plant to shut down last month, investigators said.

"There were eyewitnesses," said Kwin Peterson, a spokesman for the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, which is looking into the incident at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station that caused outages all the way to Canada. "There was a bird on a 230 kilovolt power line west of Phoenix, and as the bird took off, it let loose as birds often do."

Investigators said they think excrement contaminated an insulator, and electricity flashed to the tower, creating a short.

At the time, utility officials said all three units at Palo Verde, plus the natural gas-fired Red Hawk power plant, turned themselves off because of a disturbance in the transmission system. But they did not know the cause at the time.

There was no radioactivity leakage or danger to plant workers or nearby residents, plant officials said. However, the loss of the 5,000 megawatts caused short power outages across Arizona to New Mexico, central California and as far as the Canadian province of Alberta.

A final report has not been completed on the cause, but evidence is strong that a bird initiated the incident, Peterson said. Normally, such an incidents would cause a circuit breaker to trip and contain the problem, but a backup relay also failed.

Peterson said the electricity council doesn't consider it to be a major incident because most of the 50,000 customers who lost power had it back on within two hours.

A final report is due in about two months.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/ ... 0908.shtml

You're right, if it's not one thing...

I guess it proves that if S*** flies.. then power dies lol.. sorry

Here's the bird I thought they should have called in for the job, need two though for 400,000 lbs. Power to an American city isn't a national emergency? Shrub should smarten up, he could order these up and win the day in AZ...

"The C-5 has proven itself big enough and tough enough to handle any heavy airlift mission":

C-5 Galaxy – Worldwide Workhorse for Strategic Airlift

How do you get six Apache helicopters to fly in formation with their engines off? Put them inside a C-5 Galaxy! Two M1 main battle tanks weighing 135,400 pounds each; six M2/M3 Bradley Infantry Vehicles; or a quarter-million pounds of relief supplies – all can be carried by the C-5, one of the biggest aircraft ever made. There is no piece of army combat equipment the C-5 cannot carry, including a 74-ton mobile bridge. The Wright brothers could have made their miraculous first flight within the C-5’s cargo bay.

Yet despite its size, the C-5 is amazingly versatile. Even with a payload of 263,200 pounds, the latest version can fly non-stop for 2,500 miles at jet speeds. With aerial refueling, it has near-unlimited range. It can load outsized cargo from both ends at once (at truck-bed height or ground level), and its 28-wheel, high-flotation landing gear allows operation from unpaved airfields without ground-support equipment.

In 1973, C-5s essentially saved Israel, flying desperately needed supplies to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem during the Yom Kippur War. C-5s delivered more than 885,000 pounds of earthquake relief to Armenia in 1988. In 1989, C-5s delivered two million pounds of clean-up gear to the Alaska oil spill. And in Desert Storm they carried nearly half a million passengers, 15 mobile hospitals and, each day, over 200 tons of mail. The C-5 has proven itself big enough and tough enough to handle any heavy airlift mission.

http://www.lmaeronautics.com/products/a ... index.html

The front end flips up, a ramp comes down, and they can drive a semi thru the back ramp, drop off the trailer and drive out the front end of this bird. It's really HUGE, the crew sits three stories high.

And here's a more detailed write up of what occured

142 wheels ..!!

:

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Transformer slips off truck, shuts down Highway 18
Narrows between Apple Valley and Victorville shut down for entire day
By CECILIA POTTS/Staff Writer

VICTORVILLE — A 370,000-pound electrical transformer slid off the custom-made big rig transporting it to Arizona on Saturday morning, closing Highway 18 for the rest of the day.

No one was injured in the incident, a California Highway Patrol official said.

The transformer broke from its moorings in Old Town Victorville near 11th Street and the Mojave River at 9:21 a.m., said an official from the California Highway Patrol. Caltrans officials said late Saturday that Highway 18 was scheduled to re-open around 4 a.m. today, but that the road's reopening could be later depending on how long it takes to get the transformer back on the trailer.

Caltrans officials brought in four cranes rated to lift 430,000-pound locomotives to right the transformer back onto the 100-ton big rig carrying it.

"They're still trying to determine how to do this," said Terri Kasinga, a Caltrans public information officer said. "The longer they're out there trying to determine what to do the quicker that midnight hour comes up."

The big rig was moving the transformer from Long Beach to Phoenix, Ariz. at 3 to 6 miles per hour along Highway 18 when the banking of the road and an upgrade caused the transformer's weight to shift, Caltrans officials at the scene said.

Precision Heavy Haulers Inc. of Phoenix, Ariz., was hauling the transformer, which was escorted by the California Highway Patrol. From Highway 18, the transformer was scheduled to travel on Highway 247 to Twenty-nine Palms and then on Highway 62 to Parker, Ariz., officials said.

Caltrans approved the route in California, Kasinga said. She said Caltrans receives more than 500 oversized transport request permits each day making it difficult for the agency to check each route.

"It would be impossible for us to inspect each route," she said.

Kasinga said Caltrans did not inspect the specially built big rig — which had 142 wheels — or how the transformer was attached to it.

When the transformer shifted, the I-beams holding it were embedded 8 to 12 inches into the pavement, Kasinga said. After the transformer is righted and is moved, the road will have to be repaired, which also could delay its re-opening time.

Caltrans officials said the elevated curve in the road snapped the kingpin of the trailer. The kingpin is the point that attaches the trailer to the truck. Another Caltrans official said another portion of the trailer bent during the load shift.

Welders were repairing broken portions of the trailer Saturday afternoon, so it could continue on to Arizona, Kasinga said. Late Saturday, Caltrans officials were unsure if the trailer could be repaired.

The specially built big rig and transformer weighs 600,000 pounds and is 280-feet in length, CHP officials said. The load is 20 feet wide and 17 feet high. The hauling company has workers driving ahead of the transformer to lift traffic signals and utility wires so it can pass under them, Kasinga said.

The transformer is needed to help ease rolling brown-outs in the city of Phoenix.

On July 4, a transformer fire at Arizona Public Service destroyed five of 13 transformers at a substation, according to the utility's web site.

The company purchased the new transformer from a company in Oregon and it was transported by barge to Long Beach for transport to Arizona.

http://www.vvdailypress.com/cgi-bin/new ... 6942,29759,

Here's a link to a summary of lenght and weight restrictions by state

http://www.horizon-lines.com/inland/overweight.htm

The limit is generally in the range of the low 40,000 pounds. So if that baby weighed 400,000 lbs, thats equivalent to approximately 10 standard semis. The weight has to be spread out over a greater length (ie more axles) so that pavements and bridges are not over stressed. Obviously that rig isn't good on curves.

One other thing, transformers can not be disassembled. Actually, the situation isn't much different than transporting a single 8.5m diameter mirror up to Mt. Graham (the story of how the 5m mirror for the Hale Telescope was transported to Pasadena in 1936 and then to Palomar Mountain in 1948 after it was finished optically is an interesting one)

Steve

The transformers BACK on the trailer and moving again! Here's the story and another photo....DANG, this this is HUGE!

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... mer26.html

Dennis

They said it was a 4-crane pick. I'd like to have seen that one.

The weight is being distributed by I-beams, maybe the London Bridge is getting a facelift too. 280' of it!

Those and the rig itself put the gross weight at 600,000 lbs.

This will be a true feat of engineering once this baby is back online.

I hope people receive discounts on their electricity bill.

Here we GO AGAIN!

http://www.azcentral.com


Tribulations continue for troubled transformer
APS unit stuck at Twentynine Palms

Emily Bittner and Jonathan J. Higuera
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 27, 2004 12:00 AM




TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. -Troubles continue to plague the trip of a giant APS transformer through the high desert of California.

The trailer hauling the 380,000-pound transformer was stuck Monday night in a remote area near Twentynine Palms after being delayed two days after a weekend breakdown on a steep grade near Victorville. The rig was unable to negotiate another steep grade, and part of the trailer caught on the pavement of California Route 62 about 8 p.m.

Terri Kasinga, California Department of Transportation spokeswoman, said the road would be closed to traffic until repairs were completed, most likely after daylight. The steel I-beams under the trailer were touching the asphalt, but the rig was moving so slowly that neither the transformer nor the road was damaged, she said.

The multivehicle caravan had picked up steam after a combination of trailers were used to maneuver the load through Victorville and 15 miles of treacherous roadway outside the town early Monday. The transformer, hauled by a 282-foot-long truck, then traveled uneventfully from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m., covering about 65 miles, before breaking down.

Until the mishap, it had been expected to cross into Arizona this morning. Twentynine Palms is about 110 miles from Parker, where the rig is expected to enter the state.



The caravan attracted onlookers in the small California towns it traveled through.

Shaun Snyder, 34, pulled off to the side of the road to watch the vehicles inching past his neighborhood in Joshua Tree about 3:45 p.m. Monday.

He wasn't surprised the rig couldn't negotiate the curves coming out of Victorville.

"You've got to be kidding me," he said about the trip to Phoenix. "What's that going to take, a month? That's going to be a mission."

As the transformer limps its way to the Valley, it's natural to wonder if other modes of transportation would have gotten it here more quickly.

APS says no.

The load could not have been shipped by air or rail because it is too large and awkward, they said.

"This particular unit was too big for rail transport," APS spokesman Mark Fallon said. "With the schedule we wanted to keep, it didn't make sense to go overland (tractor-trailer) from the Spokane area to here. It was much more expeditious to go combination barge and land transport."

Part of the problem is the transformer cannot be laid on its side, like some transformers. Because it sits more than 17 feet high, it was almost 4 feet taller than any of the available cargo transport planes.

The transformer was shipped by sea from the Port of Tacoma, Wash., to Long Beach, Calif.

APS contracted with Precision Heavy Haul, Inc., a Tolleson company that specializes in heavy hauling, to move the transformer from Long Beach to Phoenix. It is the same company that moved the 18-ton honeycomb mirror to the Mount Graham International Observatory near Safford last year.

That job earned the company the 2003 Transportation Job of the Year by the Specialized Carriers Riggers Association.

American Heavy Moving and Rigging of Chino, Calif., was called in to supply the hydraulic trailer needed to keep the transformer stable over the steep grades.

Calls to the Tolleson company were referred to APS, but industry veterans said a job that size requires keeping the structure vertical.

"Sometimes you have to custom-build," said Bob Pierson, a heavy haul manager for Phoenix-based Southwest Industrial Rigging.

In March, Salt River Project shipped a 285,000-pound transformer from Austria to Williams Gateway Airport in Mesa in the world's largest airplane, a Russian Antonov 225.

The company had a couple of large transformers damaged last year after they were shipped by rail.

"We have some concerns moving a transformer via rail," SRP spokesman Scott Harelson said. In those cases, the company determined the transformers had suffered 5 to 7 g's of impact. A g is a measure of acceleration.

"We'll continue to move by rail only as long as we have a dedicated rail car," he said.

Saturday's accident involving the transformer did not lead to any damage that would make it a safety hazard, APS officials said.

Information was unavailable about the extent of damage from Monday's mishap.

The transformer's impact recorders, which measure the amount of jarring during a trip, showed the transformer on Saturday suffered less than one-half of the impact that would have raised concerns.

"That's why our engineers went there to check," APS spokesman Damon Gross said. "Everything was well within what it can take as far as impact.

"When it comes into town, we'll conduct an array of tests just like we would do in any circumstance."

The impact equaled about .5 g's, the company said. The transformer's manufacturer, Sumitomo Corp., informed the utility company that it would take at least 3 g's for it to present a problem, APS officials said.

The transformer is in the third leg of a journey that started July 11 from a substation near Kent, Wash., owned by the Bonneville Power Administration, a Pacific Northwest utility company. In exchange for the spare transformer, APS will buy Bonneville another transformer.

In another development, a replacement transformer at the Deer Valley substation was able to begin operations about 3 a.m. Monday.

Bringing this transformer online will bring the substation back to full capacity. APS customers in the areas of Seventh to 67th avenues from Olive to Dynamite and from 67th to 115th avenues from Northern to Union Hills no longer are considered to be in a "high risk" area.

This is really nuts. What genius designed these monsters? Obviously not to be moved from place to place. What, they thought they'd never leave the factory? Everywhere has roads like Kansas?

Aren't there smaller transformers that can be hooked up inline somehow?

Something actually portable?

AMEN KIKO, AMEN!

WELL......can you BELIEVE THIS??? "LOL!" Talk about a SOAP OPERA

http://www.azcentral.com

Transformer move again comes to halt

Nick de la Torre/The Arizona Republic

A trailer carrying the 380,000-pound power transformer bound for the Valley has been put out of commission by the state of California.

Calif. agency orders equipment transferred to specialized trailer

Jonathan J. Higuera and Laura Houston
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 28, 2004 12:00 AM


The odyssey of the gigantic transformer on its way to the Valley hit another speed bump Tuesday.

The California Department of Transportation, in charge of authorizing its move through the Golden State, ordered it placed on a special tractor-trailer that can better handle curves and, with a little luck, travel at higher speeds.

The move could delay the 380,000-pound transformer's journey, at least initially, as the special tractor-trailer and cranes must travel to the area to make the switch. Fortunately, the special rig, which is equipped with hydraulics and is much smaller than the current 282-foot-long rig, is about 120 miles away in Victorville, where a Saturday mishap forced it into use.

.

"They are one of the permitting agencies," APS spokesman Mark Fallon said. "If they say you can't go, you're not moving."

APS officials said they were unsure when the transformer would be able to move again but were hopeful it would be soon, perhaps as early as today.

"We're still moving to the schedule we originally set," Fallon said.

APS officials have continued to say the transformer should be arriving in the Valley on or before Sunday. It is slated to be up and running by mid-August.

That would be welcome relief for Valley businesses and residents, who have faced the threat of rolling blackouts since July 4, when a bank of transformers went up in flames at the Westwing substation.

"We can't say enough about our business and residential customers," Fallon said. "We have evidence that they are reducing peak demand by 200 to 300 megawatts per day."

The replacement transformer and its 15-vehicle caravan traveled about 50 miles Tuesday, starting near Twentynine Palms.

It came to rest at a junction on California 62 about 60 miles from the Arizona border.

During Tuesday's journey, the caravan stopped twice to add support during a couple of steep curves.

Apparently, that was enough for Caltrans, which has been monitoring the overland journey from Long Beach, Calif., to call for a tractor-trailer that offers hydraulic support.

With traffic backing up, California drivers were starting to get short-tempered.

R.A. Brown, 65, a retiree from Blythe, was caught behind the caravan for an hour and a half.

"I don't care if Scottsdale ever gets its transformer, just get it off the road," he said.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Department of Transportation released the route the transformer will take during the Arizona leg of the journey. The caravan stays off Interstate 10, the most direct route to the Valley, although it crosses it at several points.

"What they are looking to do is avoid the higher-volume traffic on Interstate 10," ADOT spokesman Doug Nintzel said.

The order to use another tractor-trailer is a setback to Precision Heavy Haul, the Tolleson-based company handling the move.

It basically has to call in a second contractor with the specialized tractor-trailer.

But APS officials remain confident in the company, which received an award for its work moving an 18-ton honeycomb mirror up Mount Graham last year.

"We have faith they will get the job done," Fallon said.

Well Snowman, I did some poking around the office today and come to find out, despite my initial astonishment at this load, it's not as uncommon as all that.

I work in the PennDOT Engineering District office and talked to our Permit girls today. We just had one come thru a couple months ago, half a million lbs, and got some info on another from a couple years ago.

These are 500,000 lbs dryers that came from a manufacturer in Italy, thru the port of Philadelphia and by truck to a paper plant in Lock Haven, Clinton Co., just this year.
http://www.ippaper.com/HammermillRetail/History.html


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/ ... rload1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/ ... stance.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/ ... htside.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/ ... ckboth.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/ ... byside.jpg



Another one a compressor that was built in Bradford, McKean Co. and trucked all the way across the state (NW to SE) to Bucks Co. (Philly area). It was almost a half million pounds too.

She gave me some specs on it:

448,000 lbs.
length 228'
width 13'
height 16'
24 axels

201K lb weight is considered a 'superload' and has to be approved by Central Office (PENNDOT in Harrisburg), the District it goes thru (ours in these cases) has to give the ok too.

This one had to get off I-80 (it could go 45mph) because of a load restriction somewhere--probably a bridge needing rehab, or under construction at the time(?) and went down the two-lane.



I guess these big loads aren't so uncommon. What else I found out is that to take them on the interstate, they have to be able to go at least 45mph. Your transformer coming from CA had a top speed of 10mph. That's considered a crawl speed for tunnels and bridges.

So take a look at the hydraulic trailers. That's what they're dealing with trying to get yours from California.

Your public servant, (that darn bureacrat)
Kiko