A Miller Transfer & Rigging Co. driver recently loaded a 27-foot long, 12-foot-wide, 150,000-pound automotive press component onto one of the company's 13-axle trailers at the manufacturer in Lansing, Mich.
Pulled by a Kenworth T800, the load arrived a few days later in Lordstown, Ohio, for installation in a giant press at the General Motors factory.
All in a couple of days' work for Miller Transfer.
When a company needs to haul something massive and heavy -- like automotive presses, industrial furnaces, power generators or subway cars -- they often dial Miller Transfer of Rootstown, Ohio.
Since 1968, the company has specialized in hauling loads topping out at 325,000 pounds, serving customers nationwide and in Canada and Mexico through 19 terminal locations.
"If you're a manufacturer needing to move heavy machinery, that's what we do every day," said Jim Unger, Miller Transfer president. "Loads of 152,000 pounds, for example, are uneventful for us."
Not all of Miller's hauls are ho-hum, however. In 2002 Miller was called on to move three 76,000-pound boilers from Pennsylvania cross country to heat the Winter Olympics Village in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 2000, Miller answered another unusual call to transport two 10,000-pound plaster tigers from Connecticut to the opening of Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers baseball team. When nature's elements wore away the tigers' stripes, Miller hauled the figures to an Ohio plant for repainting and refinishing and then back to Detroit in time for the next baseball season.
The muscle to pull and push these heavy hauls comes from the company's fleet of 19 Kenworth T800s, built in four-axle and three-axle configurations. The Kenworth tractors are powered by Cummins engines ranging up to 530 horsepower, pulled through Eaton Fuller 18-speed transmissions with two-speed auxiliaries. Miller Transfer's heavy duty trailer fleet includes 16 multi-axle trailers and a pair of dual lane transporters.
"We start with a conventional T800 and spec everything from the heavy-duty frame on up," said Ron Christoff, director of maintenance for Miller Transfer. "We were able to work with the Kenworth staff to get all of the specs we were looking for our trucks."
"We have many reasons why we are long-time Kenworth customers. At the top of the list are durability and reliability," Unger said. "They handle the extreme weights we're hauling day in, day out."
Kenworth Truck Co., a division of Paccar Inc., is a leading manufacturer of heavy and medium duty trucks.
For more information, visit www.kenworth.com.
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