Butler Machinery has successfully delivered and installed two Caterpillar C175 generators to two different jobsites in rural South Dakota, one of our most logistically challenging deliveries to date. The generators, which are each comparable to the size of a railroad car, are 50 feet long, 14 feet wide and 15 feet tall, weighing 120,000 pounds. The generators will power a water treatment plant and an intake plant for WEB Water, which has a service area that reaches customers in 17 counties, 14 counties in South Dakota and three counties in North Dakota. Each generator will run approximately 300 hours per year. The delivery and installation of the generators took two days total, with the help of six people from the trucking company, four from the crane company, two from the electrical contractor, and four from Butler Machinery.
C175 GENERATOR DELIVERY
On the day of the delivery, two trucks from TJ Potter Trucking carried the 120,000 pound generators roughly 300 miles from where they were manufactured to the treatment plant and intake plant. The truck carrying the generator headed to the intake plant had to be transferred over to a shorter trailer in order to safely navigate the gravel road. The truck traveled nearly three miles at less than 5 mph, around a hairpin turn, in order to get to the site at the water’s edge of the Missouri River.
C175 GENERATOR INSTALLATION
Placement of the intake generator on the concrete pad took patience, accuracy and extreme safety measures from all involved. To lift the generators off of the trucks, 70,000 pounds of counterweights had to be hung on the back of the cranes to ensure that the crane would not tip over from the weight of the generators.