Missoula Man Operates Huge Crane In Oregon

Missoula’s own Chuck Burnett who graduated from Sentinel High School back in 1988  and then Arizona State is operating one of the largest cranes in the world. This monster crane is called the LTL2600. It will be sitting in two different locations to set trusses. Each pad will be 200 ft. X 200 Ft., or 40,000 sq. ft. One acre = 43,560 sq. ft., so each pad is almost an acre in size. However, the crane is coming in pieces (on 200 semi trucks), and the boom has to be constructed on the ground, so you can imagine how much space they are needing just to put this monster together. Also, for the two pads where the crane sits while it will be operating, they have to dig an 8 foot deep hole (200 ft. X 200 ft.) and fill it with rock so it can support the crane's weight. Fifteen cranes tower above Intel's Ronler Acres campus called D1X, near Hillsboro Stadium, building the chip maker's $3 billion research factory. A steady stream of cement mixers and gravel trucks pass by, single file, creating the steady roar that drives one of the biggest construction projects in Oregon's history. The crew is putting in 35,000 hours a week. And this is just the beginning. The project will occupy a small city of carpenters, pipe fitters and other craftspeople, as many as 5,000 at the peak of construction. The dirt from excavation alone could fill more than 30,000 dump trucks. A mammoth crane, with an 800-foot-boom, arrived this summer to lift loads of as much as 2,600 tons.

D1X by the numbers
Cost: $3 billion
Concrete: 150,000 to 200,000 cubic yards
Excavation: 500,000 to 1 million cubic yards of dirt
Steel and rebar: 45,000 tons
Construction workers: 6,000 to 8,000 over the two-year project
Long-term jobs: 800-1000, starting when D1X opens in 2013
The Oregonian ran a complete story on this project back in teh Spring of this year. If you've got the time it's pretty interesting.