Crane and transport firm Affolter, headquartered in Schüpfen, Switzerland, has installed a wildlife crossing bridge over the A1 motorway near Solothurn. It deployed a trio of Liebherr cranes, with work taking place over six nights.
With the motorway closed each night between 11:00 pm until and 5:00 am, Affolter delivered and lifted into place up to ten timber beams – each measuring 38 m long x 3 m high – each night. Affolter opted for the most powerful crane in its fleet, the Liebherr LTM 1300-6.2. With a maximum radius of 25 m, the six-axle crane placed its 20-tonne loads at half-hour intervals.
A 20-year-old Liebherr mobile harbour crane loaded the long timber items onto the trailers of the heavy transport vehicles at a storage site. At the construction site, an LTM 1160-5.2 unloaded the cargo and placed the beams into a holding frame, with the larger mobile crane then hooking the bulky loads and installing the beams.
Taking just under a week, the timber structure of the bridge was wrapped up. The finished wildlife bridge will span more than 50 m in width.
Earlier this month, BLG Logistics at the Bremerhaven car terminal in Germany took delivery of a new LHM 550 mobile harbour crane.
