One of the big projects on in Auckland at the moment is the duplication of the Mangere Bridge. Multi-Trans is on site to take care of the heavy haulage aspects of the job. BY MARY SEARLE
Multi-Trans owners Dave Brown and Malcolm Templeton (pictured right) enjoyed successful careers in the heavy haulage business for more than 30 years before redundancy inspired them to team up together.
“They told us we were too old, so we moved around the corner and set up our own company,” recalls Brown with some amusement. “It’ll be 10 years next April.”
Templeton’s heavy haulage career began in 1972 when he joined Dales Freightways as operations and equipment manager after serving 13 years in the army. It was at Dales Freightways that he first met Brown, who had joined the company as fleet controller in 1978, eventually becoming operations manager of the heavy haulage division.
They both clocked up over a decade with the company before moving on in different directions, but were eventually reunited in 1994 at NZL Transport.
When NZL Transport decided to get out of project work, its big Cometto trailers were sold to Machinery Movers and Brown and Templeton were left without jobs. The unexpected redundancy and accompanying ageist comments did, however, give them a strong incentive to set up on their own.
A decade on and the staff at Multi-Trans has grown to 16 in total and the business relationship is stronger than ever.
“Malcolm hails from Mangamuka in the far north, and I’m from Mataura in the deep south,” says Brown. “Our birthdays are only two days apart – all the indicators are that we wouldn’t get on, but we do. We make it work. It’s good.”
Over the company’s 10 year history, Brown says their most memorable project is shifting two 870 tonne, 87 metre high container cranes for the Ports of Auckland about 18 months ago. Where it had taken the opposition four days to shift one, Multi-Trans got the same job done in six hours.
“We came up with a pretty innovative support system that sat under the crane, which allowed us to simply drive the trailer underneath and pick it up,” he says.
Multi-Trans will move pretty much anything – it’s done a lot of boat haulage, big machinery, buildings and transformers. Brown says they’ve bought the jinkers and bogeys off NZL Transport so will be chasing the bridge beam market.
The company also has a heavy haulage operation in Wellington and has been working in New Plymouth in a joint venture with Hookers on the Taranaki energy projects.
Pieces of piers
The big job on the go at the moment is moving pier tables for the Mangere Bridge duplication, under construction in Auckland as part of the State Highway 20 Manukau Harbour Crossing project.
Work on the new bridge is starting to become more visible as the first of 14 pier columns are constructed. The columns are supported by 18 piles, some sunk 50 metres into the seabed.
The five pairs of pier columns over water will be topped by a pier table made up of four pre-cast pieces, each weighing between 72 and 82 tonnes – this weight variation is because each is customised to fit the curve and camber of the bridge. The pier tables sit on top of the columns and act as the starting point for building the deck of the bridge.
The first of the five pier tables was lifted into place on Pier 5 on October 29.
The each piece of the pier table – 20 in total – is lifted by crane from the casting yard on site onto Multi-Trans’ platform trailer and moved the short distance, about 200 metres, under the existing bridge, and reversed out on the staging to the columns, where another crane lifts it into position.
The four pieces of each pier table are then connected by a central concrete diaphragm that is poured in situ. The deck of the pier table is then completed, ready to support the form travellers being used to build the bridge deck segments.
By mid-December the Pier 5 pier table will be completed and the first of the form travellers will be in place. This first deck span will be completed by next August. By Christmas, the NZ Transport Agency expects to have 40 percent of the piers complete and by the end of March next year, all the sub-structure of the bridge should be complete.
Work will then be purely building the segments of the spans between the columns over the harbour and pre-casting the segments for the spans over land. All segments will be in place by July 2010.
Once completed, the bridge will contain approximately 26,000 tonnes of concrete and be strong enough to carry up to 500 vehicles at a time. Its foundations will have capacity to carry a low-level rail crossing as part of a future rail link to the airport.
The gear
Multi-Trans operates two types of platform trailer. Cometto trailers, which have 30 tonne payload capacity and axle spacing of 1.6 metres, were recently purchased from Megalift in Australia. MTE supplied trailers have 28 tonne payload capacity and two metre axle spacing.
The MTE trailers were designed by Multi-Trans and MTE engineers in order to meet New Zealand road and bridge ratings. Longer axle spacings provide better load distribution but also mean a stronger trailer frame is needed to distribute imposed loading evenly throughout the axle groups. Both sets of trailers incorporate a box section main frame that provides better torsion characteristics than the previous I-beam design models.
All axles have steering capability and can be controlled during road transport through the draw bar, or manually for on-site and restrictive areas. This includes being able to crab steer the unit sideway if required.
The two main tractor units operating with the platform trailers are a Mercedes 3050, which has a 250 tonne GCM rating, and a Scania 144g with 200 tonne rating. Both units are fitted with torque converters and hydraulic retarders.
The Multi-Trans fleet consists of a range of widening low-loaders with payload capacity of up to 140 tonnes, plus step-decks, trombone trailers and a house transporter.
The Mangere Bridge duplication
The first sod was turned to mark the start of the construction of the State Highway 20 Manukau Harbour Crossing back in April 2008.
The NZ Transport Agency describes the project as one of the biggest and most strategic transport projects in the Auckland region. It will see a new duplicate four-lane motorway bridge constructed over the Manukau Harbour between Onehunga and Mangere Bridge alongside the original bridge built in 1983. Together, the new and existing bridges will each feature four lanes and bus shoulder lanes north towards Onehunga and south towards Mangere.
The new and existing bridges will add much needed capacity for motorists travelling across the Manukau Harbour and have been designed to accommodate the 160,000 vehicles which are expected daily to use the new crossing by 2021.
In addition to the bridge duplication, the Rimu Road/Mahunga Drive Bridge will be replaced to allow motorway widening. Further south at Tararata Creek, a new off ramp bridge and widened motorway bridge is required. At the Queenstown Road Bridge, additional retaining walls at abutments will be required. The Beachcroft Avenue and Hastie Avenue footbridges will also need to be replaced to allow motorway widening.
The $230 million project is expected to be completed by March 2011, in time to cater for the many thousands of people expected to attend the Rugby World Cup.
Project facts:
- Client: NZ Transport Agency
- Consultant: Beca Infrastructure
- Principal contractors: Fletcher Construction and Higgins Contractors
- Craneage: Brian Perry Civil
- Heavy Haulage: Multi-Trans
- Start of work: April/May 2008
- Expected completion: October 2010
- Cost: $230 million
Bridge stats:
- Concrete: 10,000 cubic metres
- Final weight: 26,000 tonnes
- Carrying capacity: 400-500 vehicles at a time
- No of piles: 18
- No of piers: 7 (14 pier columns)
Contractor Vol.32 No.11 December 2008 - January 2009
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