Highway lifting by Shuttlelift

US-based James Construction Group has taken delivery of two Shuttlelift ISL mobile gantry cranes: an ISL 5B and ISL 70B. They will be used for the reconstruction phase of the LA 1 highway between Port Fourchon and Leeville, Louisiana.

"The new road will be elevated by approximately 22 feet (6.7 m), over a 7 mile (11.3 km) stretch, to counteract flooding that the old LA 1 suffered due to subsidence and coastal erosion. Due to the difficult terrain, both ISLs are operating on temporary rail tracks that are being piled-in to run alongside the elevated section, leap-frog style. They will pick up pre-delivered and pre-cast concrete bridge sections and girders," explained Dan Reinholtz, Shuttlelift gantry sales.

This unusual operational feature meant that both ISLs had to be custom built to operate on rails, while retaining the ability to be converted back to traditional rubber tyred gantries once the job is complete.

Jerry Wierzba, VP of engineering, said, "Converting the ISL 50B was relatively straightforward; rail wheels were built with the same bolt pattern as conventional wheels and bolted to the planetary drive, just like the standard wheels would have been, then the steering cylinder was replaced with an adjustable rigid link."

Wierzba continued, "The ISL 70B required a little more modification due to a single rail wheel at each corner not being adequate to carry the payload. Therefore, new wheel frame assemblies were fabricated to accommodate dual rail wheels again, at each corner. These modifications are yet another example of how Shuttlelift is able to accommodate the needs of the customer."