880 axle lines under one cargo: Fagioli lands the SC&RA Moving Job of the Year
Fagioli has been named winner of the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association’s Moving Job of the Year for a load-out performed on 880 modular axle lines, which the contractor says is the largest number ever put under a single cargo.
The award
The prize was presented during the SC&RA annual conference held in Phoenix, Arizona, in April 2025. The Moving Job of the Year category rewards a single executed job rather than a company’s overall record, and the entry that took it was an exceptional load-out built around 880 modular axle lines.
What the operation involved
Fagioli has previously reported that the same operation set three separate records. The 880 axle lines were driven by 28 power pack units — the figure the contractor cites as a world record for the largest quantity of axle lines under one cargo. The load itself was the wind turbine installation vessel Charybdis, at 23,163 tonnes, which Fagioli logs as the heaviest weight ever carried on self-propelled modular transporters.
The third claim relates to the load-in: 26,900 tonnes taken onto three barges simultaneously, which the company describes as the heaviest barge load-in on wheels. Those figures were published in the contractor’s own account of the job (Fagioli, April 2024).
Why it is hard
An 880-axle-line configuration is not simply a bigger version of a normal SPMT move. Load distribution across that many axle lines has to be managed hydraulically in groups, the ground bearing pressure and quay capacity have to be verified across the whole footprint, and the transition from quay to barge demands continuous ballasting so that deck level tracks the tide and the shifting load. Any mismatch between the barge deck and the quay, even of a few tens of millimetres, transfers straight into the transporter suspension and the cargo.
Coordinating 28 power pack units is a control task in its own right. Each unit drives and steers a block of axle lines, and all of them have to answer to a single command point so that the spread behaves as one vehicle through curves, gradient changes and the ramp onto the barges. Steering geometry across a footprint of that size has to be computed rather than judged by eye.
Fagioli credited the result to planning and to the teams and partners involved, and presented the award as recognition of its work on safety, engineering and operational quality.
Source: Fagioli — Photos: Fagioli
Record load-out
- Award: Moving Job of the Year, SC&RA 2025
- Presented: SC&RA annual conference, Phoenix, Arizona, April 2025
- Axle lines: 880 modular
- Power pack units: 28
- Cargo: WTIV Charybdis, 23,163 t
- Barge load-in: 26,900 t onto three barges simultaneously