Barnhart’s first haul into Mexico

For their maiden haul to Mexico, Barnhart Crane & Rigging certainly didn’t start out small.

Barnhart’s trailer, with a subcontractor’s trucks, hauls the load though the San Luis Rio Colorado commercial border crossing.

Barnhart’s Los Angeles branch was hired to offload, transload and haul 10 pieces of cargo from Yuma, AZ to Mexicali Gonzalez Ortega, Mexico and San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico. The cargo consisted of six 710,000-pound generators and four 478,000-pound gas turbines.

The components were received via railcar in Yuma, AZ and offloaded using 600-ton capacity J & R Engineering gantries and a 16-line Goldhofer SPMT system. Barnhart utilized its GS800 trailer configuration to haul the various pieces of equipment. Some loads even exceeded an impressive one million pounds in total combined weight.

One of the generators is offloaded to its final location at the San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico jobsite.

The crew faced significant challenges, the largest one being the sheer size of the loads. One such haul turned out to be the one of the biggest trailer configurations that the Arizona Department of Transportation had permitted through their state. For the longest cargo, the convoy was 320 feet long, including trucks and trailers.

Border relations

Then there was the issue of coordination with the border control agencies on both the U.S. and Mexico borders. Customs agents on both sides came together to assist the Barnhart team with the crossing of this massive trailer. It was no small feat to be moving a trailer of this size through a commercial border crossing.

Once inside Mexico, the Barnhart team traveled through San Luis Rio Colorado and Mexicali to their destinations.

Barnhart used 60-foot bridge jumpers to cross a bridge to get to the Gonzalez Ortega, Mexico jobsite.

En route to the Gonzalez Ortega project site in Mexicali, the convoy encountered a bridge that couldn’t handle the million-pound cargo and had to be jumped with 60-foot bridge jumpers.

As of early November 2023, the crew has delivered five of the pieces, with five more scheduled to be delivered to the jobsites.