The first of the “superload” trucks that will carry equipment to the Homer City Energy Campus starting this week will now leave the Schenley dock in Allegheny County on Tuesday, not on Monday as originally planned. The delay is for further refinement of the two-day route to Indiana County.
In all, 53 rigs, each of them 205 feet long, 17 feet wide, and as high as seventeen feet tall, will be bringing the loads between now and January. The journey for the turbine components began at the GE Vernova facility in Belfort France, crossing over the Atlantic to Mobile, Alabama, then to the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, and the Mississippi, Ohio, and Allegheny rivers.
Edwards Moving and Rigging expects to leave the dock at 9:30 AM Tuesday and arrive in Leechburg, a little over six miles away, at 10:30. After rounding the tight curve in Leechburg, the journey will continue on to Delmont via Route 66, then onto Route 22 through New Alexandria and Blairsville, and onto Route 119 North, turning at the light in Black Lick onto Power Plant Road. Top speed is expected to be around ten miles per hour, and there will be rolling traffic closures.
State police public information officer Trooper Clifford Greenfield says escorts will be with the rigs every step of the way to ensure safety and security and monitor the efforts to lift overhead wires and traffic signals.
