Crane business

With all the talk about banning leisure activities with cranes, they actually seem to be on the increase. The most recent one we have heard of is a troupe from Antwerp the Theater Tol, a sort of Cirque de Soleil type act.

Indicative of both wind power’s continued maturation and the importance the industry places on the safety of its greatest asset, today the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) entered into an official Alliance to further protect the health and safety of the industry’s workers.

A lattice crane boom came down onto the Leesburg Pike near Tysons Corner to the west of Washington DC today.

We understand that there were no injuries on the incident which appears to have involved some kind of foundation crane. It looks as though the boom buckled over the back of the crane.

A Rough Terrain crane overturned in Travis on Staten Island New York yesterday, no one was injured and the operator was able to exit the cab and walk from the scene.

Work was underway on lowering concrete pads to form the foundation of a facility associated with the project when, for an unknown reason, a crane unit tipped over at about 9:30 a.m., said Greg Dobrowolski, special projects manager for the City of Dawson Creek. He said the driver of the crane was taken to hospital with unknown injuries.

Norwegian construction company, Norska Veidekke, is using a Hiab crane fitted with a work platform to help secure the roof of a Swedish road tunnel currently under construction.

A double deck bus collided with a load of rebar being lifted by a tower crane on a site in Sidcup, Kent yesterday. The incident happened opposite the railway station, the load struck the inside top corner of the upper deck smashing the window. No one was injured in the incident, although a seven year old girls sitting in the seat nearest was treated for a minor cut from a glass fragment.

Modulift has designed and manufactured the giant lifting rig used for the fast and efficient lifting and assembly of the Repower’s 5MWgiant wind turbines at Harland and Wolff in N. Ireland. Responsible for the unloading and assembly of the clean power generators for Vattenfall’s Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm Project in the Irish Sea, Harland and Wolff also have to load them back onto the barges when assembled, for installation in the Irish Sea, creating a need for a rig that could multi-task.

Early Monday morning, Eagle West Cranes was on metal sculptor Kevin Stone’s front lawn preparing to transport his 8,000-pound steel dragon to the Pacific National Exhibition grounds in Vancouver.“I don’t want nothing to go wrong,” he said, swiping his hand nervously through his hair. “A million things could go wrong.”

A man died when a mobile crane toppled over at a quarry in Lancashire. Emergency crews were called to the Scout Moor quarry in Edenfield, near Ramsbottom, after reports that a crane had crashed at 11:55 BST.