Machine transport by inland waterway vessel

in News
TagsEngineering, engineering and equipment, Equipment, Sennebogen

Jan 15

SENNEBOGEN has successfully loaded eight large machines onto an inland waterway vessel to transport them by water from Straubing via Antwerp to Charleston, South Carolina.

The machine transport was carried out in close cooperation with the Karl-Groß forwarding company from Regensburg, which has extensive experience in the field of heavy-duty transport. The use of inland waterway vessels brings significant advantages in terms of sustainability and costs.

challenges in loading

Loading the eight machines, including the SENNEBOGEN 855 and 870 models in crawler and mobile versions, presented a logistical challenge. With operating weights of between 70 and 105 tons, loading them onto the inland waterway vessel was a complex undertaking that required special measures. “As the machines could not be fully lifted, we had to dismantle the counterweights at the site and reassemble them after loading. In addition, the access road between the SENNEBOGEN factory and the port had to be temporarily closed,” explains Roland Hermann, Head of Customs and Foreign Trade Machine Shipping at SENNEBOGEN.

Tandem lift: Efficient process and innovative lifting technology

In total, machines with a total weight of 700 tons were loaded. The heavy load required the use of a tandem lift with two cranes, which were precisely controlled by experienced crane operators. This technique enables the weight to be evenly distributed and minimizes the load on the cranes. “The challenge was to lift the machines into the barge without interruptions or jolts. The first machine was loaded at 7 a.m. and by midday seven machines had been safely stowed away,” reports Hermann.

Transport by inland waterway offers significant environmental benefits

The use of inland waterway vessels for transport offers significant environmental benefits. While CO2 emissions for road transport are around 113 grams per tonne-kilometer, transport by inland waterway vessel is just 34 grams. This reduces CO2 emissions for the approximately 800-kilometer route by 75 percent , which corresponds to a saving of around 49 tons of CO2. “This is an important step to increase the sustainability of our machine shipping. We plan to carry out inland waterway loading regularly in the future and are currently working on implementing a comprehensive sustainability report at SENNEBOGEN,” Hermann continues.

Coordination and cooperation with the port

A smooth loading process was only possible thanks to close cooperation with the port of Straubing, which was intensively involved in the planning and implementation of the barrier measures. The city of Straubing also supported the necessary transport permits.

Route via Antwerp and further transport to South Carolina

The journey of the machines takes them from Straubing via Antwerp, where some of the machines will be loaded directly onto a sea-going vessel , while the other part will be transported on to Zeebrugge. The final destination is the port of Charleston, South Carolina, which is an important transshipment point for the American SENNEBOGEN LLC due to its good infrastructure and quality of service . The transport from Belgium to Charleston will take about two to three weeks.

Heavy load transport via inland waterway at SENNEBOGEN

The successful loading of the eight machines shows the potential of inland shipping as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional transport routes. “We used to concentrate on North Sea ports such as Hamburg and Bremerhaven, but the high reloading costs in Duisburg made this increasingly unattractive. Transporting machines by inland waterway vessel enables us to reduce logistics costs and at the same time act more sustainably ,” explains Hermann. In the summer, further transports were carried out by inland waterway vessel. These included the loading of a SENNEBOGEN 895 E material handling machine to Israel and a 9300 E harbor crane to Turkey . The heaviest component to be loaded weighed an impressive 107 tons.

The cooperation with the heavy-duty terminal and the flexible planning of transport routes will continue to play a central role in SENNEBOGEN’s machine shipping in the future.

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The heads of heavy-duty handling: Roland Hermann and Thorsten Resch from SENNEBOGEN together with heavy-duty forwarder Klaus Altmann and Andreas Löffert as well as Martin Bayer from the port of Straubing-Sand (from left).