All Crane & Erection Rental Brings Cranes to Transmission Line Rebuild Project
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November 7, 2012--When Dominion Power and its electrical utility construction contractor, the L.E. Myers Co., needed to rebuild Dominion’s aging Mt. Storm-to-Doubs 500kV transmission line—a critical component of the electric grid that serves West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland—it called on ALL Crane & Equipment Rental, Nitro, W.Va., to supply the crane power.
Rebuilding the transmission line is being done in three phases, to be completed in early 2013. By then, ALL will have helped construct 458 new high-voltage transmission line towers carrying the 500kV line for 96 miles through the Allegheny Mountains—from the Mt. Storm Power station to the Doubs substation near Fredrick, Md.
ALL Crane & Equipment Rental has been on the job for approximately 12 weeks since phase one, providing two 165-ton Grove GMK5165 and one 170-ton Demag AC140 all-terrain cranes. So far, 281 towers have been set, and the third phase is underway. As of mid October, there were 177 towers left to go.
ALL's West Virginia crew experience traveling the rugged region where the towers are being erected. "Setting high line towers in the mountains is a huge challenge,” said Gary Dodd of ALL Crane’s West Virginia branch. “Getting the cranes and counterweights up the mountains involved a crew from the contractor cutting roads and paths and sometimes even pulling our equipment up and down with dozers. The uncertainty of the terrain and the weather up there, especially with winter coming, contributes to the difficulty."
Dodd said the West Virginia team has worked in the mountains for years, and it is "moving Dominion’s project along right on schedule.”
