Mass Crane is pleased to announce the successful commissioning of a replacement, unequal leg, 50 Ton capacity, dual hook gantry crane for the Holyoke, Massachusetts Gas and Electric Company (HGED). The crane services four gates that control the Connecticut River water flow to the hydroelectric station on-site. The existing gantry crane, built over 50 years ago was controlled by a manual hand crank, many of the parts were long since obsolete, the structure was severely corroded, and HGED employees had to climb up its legs to remove, then replace cross braces every time the crane was moved. When the time came to select a bidder for the project, Mass Crane and Hoist was selected based on cost, design, and their unique installation plan which allowed for virtually no down-time for HGED.
Mass Crane's project managers worked together with HGED to develop and implement a schedule for the completion of the work in the spring of 2017, to be finished before HGED's "busy season." Mass Crane installed the new crane using a 275 Ton Hydraulic crane, set up in engineered locations above the hydroelectric penstocks. Five trailer loads, four legal and one overwidth and escorted, were coordinated for arrival on-site over the course of 2 days, with the bulk of the actual crane assembly completed in one 12 hour day. Mass Crane's millwrights and electricians then expedited the completion, startup, commissioning and testing of the new crane, complete with a HGED scheduled outage and gate test-pick, before the old gantry was rigged and removed from the dam. In May of 2017, Mass Crane turned the new Gantry over to HGED, where it will service the city for the next 50 years.
