Central Rent-A-Crane and Beaty Construction have completed a complex three-crane lift to install a refurbished early-20th-century truss bridge at Hummel Park near Plainfield, Indiana.
The approximately 190 ft steel bridge, weighing just under 150,000 lb, now spans White Lick Creek and will serve as a pedestrian crossing between the east and west sides of the park.
Site constraints including the creek, trees and nearby trails required an unusual lifting sequence involving a mid-air hand-off between three cranes.
Central Rent-A-Crane, part of the ALL Family of Companies, supplied a 770-ton Liebherr LTM 1650-8.1 and 550-ton Liebherr LTM 1450-8.1, working alongside Beaty Construction’s Link-Belt 218 HSL crawler crane.
The first stage saw the LTM 1450-8.1 and Link-Belt crawler dual-pick the bridge. The crawler then walked its end approximately 100 ft forward while the Liebherr swung the opposite end across the creek.
After the bridge was temporarily supported, the LTM 1650-8.1 connected from the opposite bank. The LTM 1450-8.1 then repositioned to the other end, allowing the two Liebherr all-terrain cranes to complete the final dual pick and lower the structure onto its concrete abutments.
“The park itself dictated the need for a lift with a hand-off,” said Dathon Lawler, estimator at Central Rent-A-Crane.
The lifting operation took around two hours and had to be completed ahead of the township’s Fourth of July celebrations.
Dating from around 1905, much of the bridge’s original steelwork has been retained, with new floor beams and stringers added before installation.
