Liebherr cranes erect 90-metre pylons on the Wahle-Mecklar line

555 pylons, 230 kilometres

The Wahle-Mecklar link, running through Lower Saxony and Hesse, is currently the largest overhead line project under construction in Germany. It calls for 555 lattice towers over 230 kilometres, with only a very small share of the route put underground, and is scheduled for completion in 2024 after four years of work. The line is part of the grid capacity needed to move wind power from the coast to consumers in the south.

Albert Regel GmbH, based at Baunatal near Kassel, is one of the crane contractors supplying the grid operator Tennet’s sites, and has been sending machines to the route in phases for three years.

Boom instead of jib

The workhorse is a five-axle LTM 1230-5.1.

“When it comes to mast construction, the crane of choice here is clearly our LTM 1230-5.1. With its 75-metre telescopic boom, the mobile crane can manage almost all of these jobs without the aid of a jib. We only use a 32-metre fixed jib on the crane for the largest of the up to 90-metre high overhead line pylons. A few times we have also sent out our 300-tonne LTM for this.”

— Daniel Stawizki, dispatcher, Albert Regel GmbH

Avoiding a jib on the majority of towers is the point: rigging and derigging a fixed jib on a pylon site costs a substantial part of a working day, and the whole method here is built around getting a complete tower up between morning and evening.

The second crane on the ground

Most of the time the 230-tonner is flanked by Regel’s LTM 1070-4.2. The compact 70-tonne machine handles the individual lattice elements at ground level and helps bring components upright before the larger crane takes them. It carries most of its ballast on the road and, with active speed-dependent rear-axle steering, gets across rough ground to the tower positions and is ready to work quickly — both material advantages when the crane has to move between pylon locations along an unmade route.

The company has also run an LTM 1200-5.1 together with an LTM 1090-4.2 as a pair on the same line. By its own count Regel has put up well over a hundred of the towers so far.

The fleet behind it

Regel operates around 40 mobile cranes from its Baunatal headquarters and a depot near Fulda. All but five come from the Liebherr plant at Ehingen. Alongside crane hire the company offers heavy haulage and machine and industrial relocation.

Source: Liebherr — Photos: Liebherr