Transporting transformers

October 2009 – A new high-voltage station is being built near Bleiswijk. Once it is in place, it will link the Northern and Southern Circuits of the new high-voltage link that will supply electricity to the cities in the west of the Netherlands. Motorways and railways were closed off to allow the transportation of the three enormous transformers. And a few temporary bridges were also built using steel tubes supplied by De Boer Staal.

The transformers, weighing 330 tons, were built at Smit Transformatoren in Nijmegen and shipped by water to Hazerswoude Rijndijk. From there, they were taken to Bleiswijk by land and during this operation a number of railways and roads were closed off for a while. Sheeting was installed at a number of locations to protect the roads, and temporary bridges were built to make the transport possible. The last section of the route crossed a specially built bridge over the railway to the high-voltage station of the national mains network company, TenneT. The foundations for these temporary bridges were built by Gebr. Van Leeuwen from Harmelen. De Boer Staal supplied about 50 tons of steel tubes measuring 406.4 x 10 mm.With thanks to Foto- en Videopersbureau Marofer – Zoetermeer (NL)

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