Have you ever heard of Zambia? How about Turquoise Ridge? In summer 2005, Intermountain Rigging and HeavyHaul helped connect the former, a landlocked Central African country, with the latter, located in northern Nevada, using nothing but a 350-ton trailer and a little help from the Nevada Highway patrol.

Because of its slightly out-of-the-way location in northern Nevada, getting anything to or from Turquoise Ridge can be a headache.

It’s understandable, then, that the prospect of transporting three 750,000-pound autoclaves from a nearby mine by rail for delivery in faraway Zambia would present a logistical conundrum guaranteed to give the average person fits.

Such was the situation facing NMT International in May of 2005. The European shipping firm’s fleet was prepared to take the autoclaves from Houston, Texas to their destination on the other side of the planet, but had no means of getting the said autoclaves from Turquoise Ridge to the coast, literally a problem of gigantic proportions.

Enter Intermountain Rigging and HeavyHaul. In just under three weeks, IRH transported all three autoclaves from the mine in Turquoise Ridge to nearby Winnemucca, where they were subsequently shipped to the coast.

From start to finish, the project took over 360 man-hours and required that I-80 be shut down three different times. The Nevada Highway Patrol escorted IRH’s 350-ton trailer from Turquoise Ridge to Winnemucca—at a breakneck pace of 25 miles per hour.

As difficult as the actual transport of the three autoclaves was, however, the hardest part of the job was getting them out of the building in which they were housed at the Turquoise Ridge Facility.

Obviously, 750,000 pound piece of mining equipment doesn’t exactly fit through the front door. Because of the autoclaves’ size, IRH workers were forced to cut an enormous hole in the side of the building before using a gantry crane and a platform to facilitate their removal.

In spite of the numerous logistical issues associated with this particular job, all three autoclaves arrived in Winnemucca without incident. Unfortunately for NMT International, however, one of the autoclaves never made it to Zambia. Thanks to an accident en route to its final destination, it ended up at the bottom of a mountain somewhere in Africa, never to be used again.

The moral of the story? IRH can transport virtually any cargo quickly and safely, and always delivers it in working order. Trust anyone else, however, and you’re liable to end up with a 750,000-pound paperweight.

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