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Old MG, New Energy Source

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bcliff

bcliff

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I work for Vestas Blades America. We make wind turbine blades. A lot of our blades are shipped out via rail. I have been a train fan longer than I have had english cars, so when I had a chance earlier this week to watch a blade train move out, I hung around and watched it go. Here are a couple of pictures as it was leaving.
It is kind of neat seeing some of your handiwork going away on a train. In case you are wondering, these blades are about 141 feet long
(Poor quality of pictures du to just having a phone camera)
Bruce
MGblades1.jpg

MGblades2.jpg
 
141'! Those must be a bear to balance!
 
I can actually speak to the balance issue. I had the pleasure(?) of matching blades into sets of 3. The lightest has to be within 5 Kilos of the heaviest. There are polyurethane weights that can be added to balance them. You weigh them, calculate the weight to be added to light ones and put them in with silicone. I was usually able to get sets within 1 kilo of each other. Not bad when you are talking about something that weighs in excess of 13,000 pounds.
Bruce
 
How do they move them on railcars that are only 40' or 50' long? Or do they have real long cars? I mean, how do they go around curves?
 
Was wondering the same thing.
 
Wow! I think it's be fun to be involved in making such cool, big things.
 
Great minds, vinnie!
 
It is interesting working on things that are so huge. One of the things I like about working on my british cars is the fact that there are not any really heavy back breaking parts and I can pick up most pieces myself (I still need help with engines and transmissions). There aren't any really small pieces once you get a blade assembled. They are all just really big and heavy. You have to be really careful moving them. I have been doing this for a little over a year and a half, and I am still awed every day when I am walking next to one of these, and when they are moving one with the overhead cranes inside the factory, it is like watching an extra large whale swim by. As far as the blade train, it is like this. They move out on 85' flat cars. These are the flats you see with two 40' containers on them. The root is anchored at on end. There is another holder that holds the blade firmly near the other end. The rest of the blade "flys" over an empty idler car. This car has a couple of uprights that are padded and look like big punching bags. These will actually flex the blade on a sharp corner. Each blade is long enough so that it has to have its own idler car, so a 33 blade train takes 66 cars.
Another amazing thing is that there are longer blades in the planning stage.
I am just tremendously grateful to have such a great job where I feel like I am contributing something positive.
Bruce
 
I've seen blades like these on I-40 a few times being transported by truck. Certainly not the 141' length your talking about. I'm only guessing but I would say the blades I saw were around 70 to 80 feet long, which looked huge to me. It's hard to imagine them being over 140' long. When you see one or more of these wind generators in action at a distance, it's hard to believe their so large.
 
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