NEWS
9
DECEMBER 2013
ACT
HIGHLIGHTS
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Delta Rigging & Tools has
started construction of a new
27,000-square-foot multi-
purpose building located on 3.7
acres of land in Pasadena, TX,
near Houston. The new facility
will consolidate Delta Rigging &
Tools’ current Pasadena branch
location and the corporate
office building located in
Pearland, TX into one location.
The current Pasadena branch,
which houses 29 employees
within 10,000 square feet
of space, is mainly used as a
rigging and production shop
and sales distribution office.
The new facility will offer
the company some 22,000
square-feet of rigging shop and
warehouse space in addition to
5,000 square-feet of corporate
office space. Delta Rigging &
Tools currently operates 18
locations throughout the United
States.
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NC Services Group Ltd.,
parent company to NCSG
Crane & Heavy Haul Services,
has acquired the assets of
Doug’s Crane from Broadwater
Industries. Founded in 1984 by
Doug Mackereth Sr., the com-
pany is the leading supplier of
operated and maintained crane
services in Prince Rupert, BC.
As a part of the transaction,
Mackereth and other Broadwater
owners will have an equity inter-
est in NCSG, and will work with
NCSG to grow the crane and
heavy haul services business in
the Prince Rupert region. “Doug’s
Crane has a 29-year history of
providing crane and lifting solu-
tions to its many customers in
the Prince Rupert region and we
are thrilled to be partnering with
Doug Mackereth and the rest
of the Broadwater management
team” said Ted Redmond, presi-
dent of NCSG.
A fire at the Citgo Refinery
in Lemont, IL required the
work of eight cranes from
the fleet of Chicago-based
Imperial Crane. The cranes
were dispatched on October
23 after the blaze was
contained. Cranes working in
the refinery clean-up include
a 500-ton capacity Liebherr
LTM 1400, two 300-ton
capacity Liebherr 1250s,
two 240-ton Liebherr 1200,
a 90-ton capacity Grove TMS
900 and two 90-ton capacity
Link Belt RTC 8090s.
Niagara Falls
tour boats
get a new lift
Boat tour company Maid of
the Mist is using a Liebherr
fixed cargo crane to maintain
passenger tour boats at
Niagara Falls in New York.
The tour boats, which can
carry up to 600 people, are
used to take passengers to
the bottom of the Niagara
A Liebherr fixed cargo crane helps maintain boats used to tour
Niagara Falls.
Sims Crane helps emergency
responders at railroad accident
Swift action by employees at Sims Crane & Equipment Co. helped emergency responders quickly
locate the body of a railroad worker crushed in a train derailment on October 25 in Sanford, FL.
Chris Arnold, Sims’ Orlando-based crane application specialist, said that minutes after he heard
about the derailment on a radio newscast, he was in touch with his Railworks Corporation client
contact at the Sun Rail accident site, and offered to send a crane to lift the derailed cars back on the
track.
Arnold said he did not know then that a railroad employee had been crushed beneath one of the
cars, which were carrying gravel at the Sun Rail expansion construction site.
“We work derailments regularly, but this was the first fatality for me,” said Arnold.
When given the go-ahead by his Railworks contacts to send a crane to the site, Arnold contacted
two nearby Sims crane operators – one with a 175-ton rig in Orlando and one with a 110-ton rig
returning from a job in South Daytona.
Both headed to the site, and within 90 minutes from when Arnold first heard about the accident,
the 110-ton arrived with Certified Crane Operator Bill Leonard at the controls.
“Within 30 minutes of arriving, he was set up and fully rigged for the lift,” said Arnold. “As a safety
concern, we had Florida Power & Light cut the power to the overhead lines before making the lift.”
Leonard gently hoisted the end of the rail car – a lift of about 36,000 pounds – up and away from
the spill site, and a team from the Seminole County Coroner’s Office removed the body. The lift
lasted 30 minutes until emergency responders could complete their investigation. In the meantime,
the 175-ton rig had arrived to serve as backup if needed.
Total time elapsed from first awareness of the accident to securing from the site was about two
hours, Arnold said.
Falls waterfall. The crane,
which has been installed at
a new dockside facility, is
used to lift the boats out of
the water during winter for
maintenance and storage. It
will lift the boats back into
the water at the start of the
spring season. The crane has a
lifting capacity of 200 tons at
a radius of 50 feet. Maximum
outreach is 78 feet.
The crane is part of a $32
million renovation of the
dockside/port at Niagara
Falls.
■
See
ACT’
s Industry Focus:
Marine Cranes on page 43.
