Heavy-duty overhead cranes speed steel loading

To increase capacity up to 1.25 million tonnes of steel per year Innovate Round Oak Rail has invested in five heavy-duty overhead cranes at its West Midlands, UK, rail-to-road transfer yard.

To increase capacity up to 1.25 million tonnes of steel per year Innovate Round Oak Rail has invested in five heavy-duty overhead cranes from Street Crane Company.

Innovate are a logistics partner of Corus and the GBP 1 million investment in new cranes is part of a major GBP 6 million refit to their Midlands rail-to-road transfer depot.

The development at Round Oak will play a crucial role in distributing steel to the automotive industry, steel stockholders and service centres throughout central England.

Receiving 20 trainloads of steel per week from Llanwern, the steel must be rapidly offloaded and held in store until it is reloaded on to trucks for its final road journey.

The turnkey Street contract included the removal of three of the existing cranes and installation of five new double girder overhead travelling cranes.

Four of the new cranes are rated at 35 tonnes safe working load and one at 42 tonnes.

On new and retained cranes, six coil grabs have been installed and one magnetic coil lift.

New crane rails of 750m have been erected with 712m of high-level safety lines.

The efficient processing of high volumes of steel demands high-speed precision load movement.

The new cranes all include inverter control for smooth power take up and acceleration, while Street's X-Y-Zero load stability system on all motions prevents load swing, assures safety and reduces loading cycles.

Due to the high intensity usage, all mechanisms are rated heavy-duty M8 classification.

The 140,000ft2 Round Oak facility can hold up to 60,000 tonnes of steel.

Using lean operation methods, the facility meets the just in time needs of Midlands manufacturers thanks to the reliability of Street's equipment that plays a key role in the receipt and retrieval of material.

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