Northfield Company Builds Record-Breaking Vehicle

This summer, Northfield-based company will be part of a potentially record-breaking journey.

For the past two and a half years, Perkins has been involved in the construction of a mammoth hydraulic platform trailer. Measuring 399 feet long, 20 feet wide and weighing in at 1.4 million pounds, the trailer will haul 760,000 pounds of low-level hazardous steam generators approximately 900 miles from San Diego County, CA, to Clive, UT.

“As far as we know, it’s the largest load ever moved this amount of distance in the US,” said Justin Brevik, Equipment Services Manager at Perkins.

Fortunately, with 192 tires and 48 axles, the Perkins trailer is up to the task.

“Our whole business is moving very large oversize loads throughout the country,” said Brevik.

However, Perkins worked with several vendors on the construction of the monster trailer, which, due to its massive size, is not self-propelled, and can only become mobile with the help of two to five tractors. 

“It’s a very complicated piece of equipment,” Brevik said.

The transportation of the generators, a project that has been in the works for six years, is also a collaborative endeavor, requiring detailed routing, multiple permits and highway patrol escorts.

The cargo, recently replaced steam generators built in the 1980s for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, constitutes low-level radioactive waste. However, San Onofre officials state that the generators are not dangerous and that all possible precautions are being taken.

“Anything that’s come in contact with radiation, even though it’s very low-level and not harmful to the public, is handled in a very special way,” said Gil Alexander, spokesperson for Southern California Edison, the company that owns San Onofre.  “The nuclear power industry has standards for how this type of retired power plant component must be handled … We are taking a significant number of precautions to protect public health and safety.”

The trailer, which left Northfield on Monday, has traveled to California disassembled in nine truckloads. Once in San Diego County, it will be reassembled, loaded, and begin its journey to Clive, a small town approximately 70 miles west of Salt Lake City. Once in Clive, the trailer will again be disassembled and return to San Diego, where it will be reassembled before repeating its journey to Clive, hauling the second of four loads of cargo.

Once the trailer has transported all four loads of generators, it will be disassembled and return to Northfield, where it will be stored until its strength and size are required for future hauls.