[Vision2020] ITD discusses plan for triple overlegal loads

[Tom Hansen]

"A caravan of three cut-down ExxonMobil megaloads is scheduled to roll through Moscow around 9 p.m. Thursday . . . 'They'll move through all at once as kind of a convenience and efficiency measure,' Rush said."

So . . . two mini-megaloads and one true megaload rolling through Moscow in convoy fashion at 9:00 Thursday evening is ITD's idea of "convenience and efficiency"?

Courtesy of today's (September 28, 2011) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

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IDT discusses plan for triple overlegal loads
A caravan of three cut-down ExxonMobil megaloads is scheduled to roll through Moscow around 9 p.m. Thursday.
This is the first time three loads have been permitted to travel together. Idaho Transportation Department spokesman Adam Rush said these are smaller than the originals that were intended to travel U.S. Highway 12.
"Those were larger loads (and) would need more time because they were also in some cases heavier and longer," Rush said Tuesday. "They're not at the same dimensions that were going to go on U.S. 12 that would have been traveling one-at-a-time, overnight and spaced out to some degree."
The company changed routes due to an injunction on the use of U.S. Highway 12 in Montana. Instead, the half-height - and some half-length - megaloads have been using U.S. Highway 95 between Lewiston and Moscow, then continuing north to Interstate 90 before turning east toward Montana.
Sizes were reduced to pass under overpasses on I-90, Rush said.
Three at a time
The three drivers will stay within 30 minutes of one another on highways, but Rush said when they reach Moscow they will parade through together.
"They'll move through all at once as kind of a convenience and efficiency measure," Rush said.
Mammoet will move the shipments through Moscow on Thursday, with one load weighing 80,200 pounds and measuring 23 feet wide, 14 feet high and 101 feet long. The next largest load is 24 feet wide, 14-feet 5-inches tall and 90 feet long and weighs 115,700 pounds. The largest, a 385,000 pound load, will measure 24 feet wide, 189 feet long and 15-feet 1-inch tall.
ExxonMobil has a total of about 75 loads of refinery equipment to transport to Alberta's Kearl Oil Sands, Rush said. Some of those already have moved, and Rush was unsure how many remain to be transported. He said ExxonMobil will be allowed to use Idaho's highways until "the point where they would take more time than we feel would be efficient."

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Seeya there, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 

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