Heavy plant components by barge and trailers into Northern Hungary

Moving three outsized components of a 200 tons oxy-chloride reactor from lower Rhine port of Emmerich by barge on Rhine, Main and Danube rivers to Hungarian inland port of Budapest and onwards by heavy load trailers up to North Hungarian Kazincbarcika in the Bökk Mountains kept the project specialists of the Riedl group in breathless suspense up to the final end of the operation.

Upon the first enquiry by German engineering and plant specialist Uhde GmbH early January 2002 the project team of Hagen-based Rolf Riedl GmbH started to work out a feasibility study for three huge components investigating an intermodal transport route leading diagonally from Rine river port Emmerich near the German-Dutch border to Hungary’s metropolis Danube port Budapest with on-carriage by heavy-duty trailers. But as almost one and a half year passed until completion of the reactor at the end of May 2003 and heights and weight of the components finally exceeded initial expectations, the Riedl experts did a good act to investigate the proposed route again. Success justified this measure since in the meantime a pedestrian fly-over at a supermarket in Miskolc crossed the main road at a height preventing to be passed by the middle section of the reactor, while one road bridge proved to be too weak and several hundreds of overhead lines for telephone, power supply and cable tv had to be disconnected, lifted or partly removed and reinstalled.
Except for the 14 days barge transport on the Rhine river, Main river, Main-Danube Channel and Danube river all road transport stages had to be performed during night times. Starting with pre-carriage by heavy trailers at 27th May from manufacturer’s works Winkels at Kleve all three components during night time were handled by two mobile cranes of up to 250 tons capacity directed and supervised by Riedl experts in the Rhine port of Emmerich into the chartered barge mv "Danny". Barge transportation meanwhile has proved as an essential integral component of intermodal heavy lift logistics operations of the Riedl group - just in contrary to some common opinion against this method of transport. After 14 days waterborne shipment below deck of the river craft, the barge reached without any hitch the Danube port of Budapest, where Riedl’s Hungarian partner Ovit carefully arranged positioning of the trailers and a 150 tons floating crane in time.
After handling of the components onto the trailers at the same day of arrival the convoy startet punctually at 23.00 hrs in accordance with local night rules for heavy transportation. The top part of the reactor measuring 5.20 x 4.90 x 11.50 m with 41 tons as well as the basic part of 4.80 x 4.90 x 7.69 m weighing 54 tons could be placed on either one 2-axle low bed trailer while the centre part aggregating 107 tons measuring 5.30 x 4.90 x 16.00 m had to be hauled by a 12-axle heavy duty trailer with a platform level of 0.80 m. This resulted into a transport height of 5.70 m causing several hundreds of interruptions at overhead supply lines. The three trailers had been escorted by either one truck, one security car with flash-lights (BF2) and one labour carrier with either five heads, a guide car and a rear car in addition to two police escorts, making a total of 13 units.
During the first of three night stages a wrongly parked trailer hampered the exit of the port area. As the driver of the trailer could not be traced by the police a time-wasting manoeuvring of the truck drivers outside the road surfacing was necessary.


Unloading MS "Danny" in Budapest by 150 tons floating crane

Passage of the oxy-reactor`s middle section (16,00 x 5,30 x 4,90 m and 107 tons) through the chemical factory "Borsodchem"


Erection of the middle section (107 tons) at work Borsodchem by main crane of 400 tons and guiding crane 150 tons


A few kilometers onward a railway line had to be crossed which signal lines had to be removed due to the transport height of the centre part of the reactor. Dismantling and re-installation took another 45 minutes. On the second night stage the greatest obstacle was reached: a bridge permitted to be passed by axle loads of up to 6 tons only. Riedl’s Hungarian partner Ovit in good time had positioned a provisional self-supporting steelbridge which had to be assembled within two hours by the escorting labours, after which the temporary construction could be passed by trucks and trailers at snail’s pace. Another interruption of two hours had been caused at a highly frequented railway line at the crossing of which a time window of at least 15 minutes had to be reserved for passing of the convoy. Not mentioning hundreds of stops at low overhead supply lines which had to be removed temporarily, re-installed or lifted reducing speed of the movement at many small towns and villages in the mountainous Northern area of Hungary.
Nevertheless shortly after midnight of the third night stage the convoy arrived safely and without any damages and within projected time scale of 17 days at gate No.4 of the consignee’s works at Kazincbarcika. Riedl’s project team leader Mr. Erwin Jüdith prolonged his supervision of the entire transport operation until the three components were uprighted by two mobile cranes and final assembling of the reactor to its construction height of more than 65 m was concluded