Transporting the precast girders to a power station in Lithuania A total of seven vehicles, each with a length of over 45 metres, wereinvolved in transporting the precast from Germany to Lithuania

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The expertise and many years of experi-ence of the firm’s own approval departmentin Paderborn were able to convince theroad traffic authorities of the urgency of thesituation and the documents were obtainedwithout delay. During this time, their col-leagues from the Poznan subsidiary hadalso been busy – after all, approvals for thetransport through Lithuania were also need-ed.

A total of eight experienced truck driversset out on the road from Paderborn withtheir 600 HP tractor units and their four- orfive-axle trailers with a 4.53 m load heightand a gross weight of 75 tonnes each. Thethree chartered subcontractors followed on.There was no room for mistakes. Specialmeasures were necessary with the 40-metre-long trailers in order to secure thehigh girders in a proper way.

Not only were there eight Paderborn driv-ers involved in this transport, two dispatch-ers from Universal Transport also camealong. They had programmed a route thathad to be adhered to strictly. The time

schedules could all be kept, such as thearrival times at loading and unloadingpoints and the arrival at the ferries, forexample. On14th July 2010, the first transport startedfrom Eichenzell near Fulda on its way to thetown of Klaipeda in Lithuania. Within anextremely narrow time window, two nightjourneys had to be planned in order toreach the ferry in Kiel harbour. The ferrycrossing took 21 hours and, after that, theroute continued for just on two days onsometime uneven roads to the endpoint.This meant that 1,300 kilometres had beentravelled in six days with a total of 575 tprecast concrete components as baggage.

The first convoy arrived punctually on 20thJuly 2010 in Klaipeda approximately 150kilometres north of Kaliningrad. Two othersfollowed with a week’s interval.

Project Breslau – European FootballChampionships 2012

In another project, Universal Transportundertook an assignment for handling and

transporting toothed beams each weighing107 t within the town of Wroclaw, Poland.A stadium for the European football cham-pionships in 2012 is being constructedthere. 80 precast concrete beams (up to 36m long, 1 m wide and 4 m high) had firstbeen brought with the railway from Bavariato Wroclaw. There they were lifted from therailway wagons at a transhipment area bymeans of two mobile cranes working in tan-dem, placed into intermediate storage andthen driven to the construction site “just intime”.

Three Universal Transport subsidiaries fromHamburg, Paderborn and Poznan wereinvolved in this joint project. The staff at thePolish subsidiary had their hands full withobtaining the authorisations for transport inBreslau as a project like this had neverbeen carried out there before.

Several transhipment possibilities and rout-ings were examined. Although the stadiumwas only situated at a distance of 500 m asthe crow flies, the route led approximately5 km right across town. The heavy transport

Transporting precast from Germany to LithuaniaUniversal Transporte Michels GmbH & Co. KG, 33106 Paderborn, Germany

The job came at very short notice and was a real challenge for Universal Transporte Michels GmbH & Co. KG from Paderborn in Germany.Less than one week before the transport was due to begin, Universal Transport had managed to get all the necessary approvals both at homeand abroad, to organise all the escorts needed after planning the route, to coordinate with the appropriate police forces and to hold the best-suited vehicles from their fleet in readiness. Arrangements were also made with a subcontractor. The transport assignment was to deliverespecially produced precast concrete girders to a power station in Lithuania.

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could only be carried out at night time andeach single journey through the town wasaccompanied by an escort of two patrolcars and eight attendants. �

Transhipping the 107 t precast concrete components for the stadium project in Wroclaw

The heavy transport could only be carried out at night time

FURTHER INFORMATION

Universal Transporte Michels GmbH & Co. KGBorchener Strasse 33433106 Paderborn, GermanyT+49 5251 71020F +49 5251 710253it@universal-transport.comwww.universal-transport.com

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