Giant crane drafted in as road upgrade continues

One of the country’s largest cranes has been drafted in to place 100-tonne concrete beams on a flyover above Cork’s busiest motorway.

Wed, 10 Apr, 2013 - 01:00

Eoin English

Special foundations have been laid on the N40 Sarsfield Rd roundabout to support the enormous weight of the €3m heavy-lifting giant.

The 500-tonne Liebherr crane has a 50m telescopic boom with an aircraft warning light on top, a 35m luffing fly jib, and 165 tonnes of ballast.

Supplied by Crane Hire Ltd with offices in Dublin and Cork’s Little Island, it is the country’s largest road mobile crane.

It is one of two huge cranes the company supplied to begin work on Monday night placing the first of 18 100-tonne 40m-long concrete beams on the flyover supports.

A €2.3m 350-tonne crane will be used to help position each of the beams.

However, despite high winds postponing the lifting operation on Monday, engineers said they are still hopeful that the overnight works will be complete by the end of the week.

The lifting operation is being overseen by Paul Ramsbottom of Crane Hire Ltd, whose twin brother, Henry Ramsbottom from Co Laois, will operate one of the larger cranes, with Jackie Kirwick from Co Tipperary at the controls of the other huge crane.

Jarlath O Leary, Crane Hire director, said the crane operators have 55-years’ combined experience.

“As the appointed lifting contractor, we are responsible for designing and overseeing the entire lifting operation,” he said.

“This is a highly skilled operation but it’s just another day in the office for the crane operators.”

The same team spent last weekend placing several vast 1m-pint capacity vessels at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.