Moving a 6 Ton compressor down a Canal?

The Problem

It’s that every day problem we’ve all been there, just how do you get a 6 ton compressor down The Grand Union Canal to allow shot blasting to take place on a rail bridge crossing the canal? Well that’s the issue one of our clients recently faced anyway.

The bridge upon which the works were being undertaken was simply too far from any road or site access to make it a feasible option. Meaning the only option available to them was to position the compressor on the canal somehow, that is where we came in.

The Solution

Launching from a jetty a little over 1 km from the bridge we provided a 4 x 14 metre pontoon which we double stacked and joined together with double length fixing pins to ensure that the two layers did not split or come apart when being moved or a load was applied. The pontoon was then surrounded in combisafe edge protection and aluminium track way was placed on the top deck of the pontoon to protect the pontoons and spread the load of the compressor as much as possible across the whole pontoon.

The compressor which measured 4.4 metres in length, 2.1 metres in width and stood 2.5 metres high was then lifted onto the pontoon by a rigid lorry with vehicle mounted crane. It was then towed down The Grand Union Canal and moored up in position allowing work to continue on the bridge without delaying the project.

Perfect for the job

Our pontoons are ideal for such projects given there buoyancy capabilities, each square metre of pontoon has a maximum working load of 350 kg per square metre, meaning that floating the 6 tons required on a double stacked pontoon caused no issues whatsoever. If evenly spread, the pontoon in question could actually have floated in excess of 30 ton!