Wind Turbine Blades Being Transported

[syscom3]

The Great Western Rly serves a new Vestas Wind Turbine Blade plant in Windsor, CO. On Oct. 16, the GWR pulled the first solid train of 36 blades out of the plant and delivered it to the UP at Ft. Collins. The GWR shoved the train from Windsor to Ft. Collins using UP 4669 and UP 8602 and a BN caboose to protect the shove. The train is symbolled SFCMY (Ft. Collins, CO to Manly, IA.). These 3 photos show the train shoving into the east side of Ft. Collins on GWR trackage. Many thanks to JLH for the heads up on this move!!

Rich Kundert
Ft. Collins, CO

 

[109ROAMING]

Are they massive?or what!

I've seen some before which are insanely big


Nice pics

 

[Screaming Eagle]

 

[Matt308]

When you see them spinning in the distance, they don't look very big. But that is engineering on a massive scale.

 

[Matt308]

Now imagine that scale prop in a runaway during high winds. That's some serious forces to contain.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBYJul2ykZs

 

[FLYBOYJ]

That's about an hour north of me. There's also a storage area for the blades somewhere around Windsor.

 

[ccheese]

Good Pic's, Sys. They want to put a wind farm 50 mi. off the Va. Beach
coast, but the people who cater to the tourists say it will hurt the industry.
Hell, 50 miles off they wouldn't even see it !!

Charles

 

[HoHun]

Hi Syscom,

Thanks for the pictures! We've got thousands of wind turbines here in Northern Germany, but I've never seen anything like that train!

Here is a picture of turbine blades being transported down the Elbe river. I'm not sure how common barge transportation is for them, but I know that they are a common sight on the German autobahnen (at night - oversize trailers

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[B-17engineer]

Wow nice pictures Sys

 

[GrauGeist]

Good God, HoHun...how big are the wind generators that those blades belong to??

 

[Soren]

You guys should see the blades they transport around in Denmark, now those are just insanely big, but so are the mills. Check these ones out right outside of Copenhagen:

 

[syscom3]

If they can put them offshore of Denmark, then they can put them off Nantucket!

 

[GrauGeist]

Simply amazing!

 

[Soren]

I actually live right next to a windmill park here in Denmark, the windmills here are really large, much larger than those you find in other countries.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

We have them all over here in Bavaria as well. Normally they are lit up, but sometimes the lights go off for somereason and during night training missions we would have trouble seeing them. Pretty scary sometimes.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Syscom,

Here is a shot of the feathering mechanism of some of the newer turbine blades. In the past, the turbines feathered the entire blade (like aircraft do), but it seems that the new and larger models are better off just feathering the tips. (Unlike aircraft, they have little to fear from the drag of the remaining unfeathered blade section ... they only have to stop the rotation.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[mkloby]

These are just awesome. Great pics guys. I have always been disappointed with the lack of interest and pursuit in alternative forms of energy. Good thing is either candidate for US president will likely be active in promoting their use.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

There is a "farm" of these right outside of my town. About 20 of them. I can not see them over the hills except when the blades are turning your can see the blades going by.

 

[muller]

This one isn't far from my place. Rotors are 52m!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

By Mojave Ca.