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Aug 26, 2023

Big truck, big move: Traffic halts in Batavia as giant shipment begins journey

BATAVIA — Talk about a heavy hauler. A gross cradle and condenser is making its way from Graham Corporation to a defense client, having left the city Tuesday morning with help from police and escort

BATAVIA — Talk about a heavy hauler.

A gross cradle and condenser is making its way from Graham Corporation to a defense client, having left the city Tuesday morning with help from police and escort vehicles.

How much does it weigh? Try half a million pounds, as the super-heavy vehicle trundled its way through the city.

Bill Basham of Basham Escorting of Canton, Ohio, was following the trailer in an escort vehicle. He said the travel time for the delivery is around two weeks.

“The trailer and the trucks weigh around 290,000 pounds,” Braham said. “The whole thing, from bumper to bumper, is about 240 feet. They call this a 19-axle trailer. Me and my brother, Irwin, are the tillermen, We steer the back of the truck.”

Everything that was part of the tractor-trailer weighed about 500,000 pounds total, he said. The truck towing the condenser and the trailer had 74 tires on them.

State police and city police were there to escort the oversized load and close part of Main Street where the trailer and load were.

Among the people standing around on Main Street near Clinton Street when the condenser was being moved was John Woods of Fox Road, who said he watched what was going on for about 30 to 40 minutes. He said he saw the tractor-trailer pull out onto Main Street from Cedar Street, then backup along Main Street to be in position to make the turn onto Clinton.

“I was just curious. I couldn’t tell what was going on,” he said. “I’ve got a brother-in-law who used to work there (at Graham). I’ve seen a lot of big stuff come out of there.”

Woods said the driver of the tractor-trailer hauling the condenser deserved a lot of credit.

“That’s a lot of weight,” he said. “He came at an angle from behind those buildings (from Cedar onto Main Street). It was really something to watch,” Woods said.

A Graham employee who declined to give her name said she didn’t know what route the tractor-trailer transporting the condenser was taking or to whom it was being delivered. The tractor-trailer was sitting on Main Street for a time before it began moving again, turning onto Clinton Street and heading east.

A previous and similar shipment in summer 2022 had eventually made its way north along Route 98 and then to the Port of Albany.

Although there was no official confirmation, the previous shipment was reported at the time to be a giant steam condenser for the future USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, under construction at the U.S. Naval Yard in Newport News, Va. It’s expected the new Enterprise will be commissioned in 2028.

(Includes reporting by Mark Gutman and Matt Surtel.)

Johnson Newspapers 7.1