Giant load rolls through Flathead
<p>The megaload of oil-refinery equipment makes its way through Kalispell on U.S. 93 heading north as it passes Hutton Ranch Plaza just before midnight on Thursday.</p>
A megaload of refinery equipment was successfully hauled on a roundabout trip through the Flathead Valley Thursday night, and it is expected to resume its trip to a final destination in Great Falls on Sunday night.
“The feedback I got is that everything went really well,” said Duane Williams, administrator of the state Motor Carrier Services Division.
Williams said the megaload was parked Friday at mile marker 77 just north of the town of Swan Lake on Montana 83.
The state permits prohibit the load from traveling on weekends, so it can resume the trip down Montana 83 to Montana 200 and Great Falls on Sunday starting at 10 p.m.
Delays as long as 15 minutes can be expected for drivers who encounter the caravan.
The load is 21 feet wide, nearly 17 feet tall and it weighs 1.08 million pounds, necessitating up to two pull trucks and three push trucks.
Starting from the weigh station just west of Kalispell at around 11 p.m. Thursday, the load entered town on U.S. 2, then turned north on Meridian Road, to U.S. 93, then east on Montana 40 and then south on Montana 206, Montana 35 and Montana 83.
The equipment being transported is the first of three pieces of a hydrocracker, a massive refinery machine used to process Canadian oil sands. It is destined for the Calumet Refinery in Great Falls.
It is being moved by Bigge Crane & Rigging Co., which picked up the load at the Port of Lewiston in Idaho last week.
Williams said the load is expected to arrive in Great Falls during the middle part of next week.