TCC-2500 hard at work at chemical plant

The Kelly Group, of Decatur, IL, recently rented a new Link-Belt 250-ton TCC-2500 telescopic crawler crane from The ALL Family of Companies.

In a little over seven months, the TCC-2500 logged 1,650 working hours, travelling a distance of ten miles working around a railroad discharge facility in an agro-refinery complex. The rail line is flanked by silos and tanks with rooftop walkways, conveyors, and enclosed motors.

“When the trains came in or went through, we retract the boom, walk it over the train tracks to the other side, let the train cars come by and then go back to the work location,” said Ron McCoy, crane superintendent, The Kelly Group. “We walk it in, set up, boom out, do the picks, pull the boom back in and walk it out several times a day.”

The tallest tank, a 150 foot corn tank is being dismantled and removed in sections weighing up to 1,500 pounds. In some instances, the radius for removing sections of the old corn tank is up to 265 feet away. These lifts were completed by fully extending at 223 feet and erecting 117 feet offset jib at 45 degrees to reach the farthest corners of the 80 feet in diameter corn tank.

“Anything else was not really feasible,” added McCoy. ”A big crawler crane did not have the space to be erected and lay it down when needed. With a truck crane, it would have to be a much larger capacity rig, over 500-ton capacity. We could have retracted the boom, and lift up the outriggers, but then have to tear all the counterweights off, (to reduce ground pressure thus losing time), then move it across the tracks. This would be at least twice a day. So the TCC-2500 was extremely helpful. We figured out that we saved over $800,000 during this project just because of that crane, and that is a conservative estimate.”