In early October, Vic’s took on the challenge of moving a transformer from Burnsville, MN to a new substation in Inver Grove Heights, in the East metro. When moving a load as heavy and tall as this one, planning is crucial and details matter: Vic’s conducted an extensive route survey to find the most efficient and practical route while still keeping everyone’s costs down.

The Old North Shore Scenic Drive running between Duluth and Two Harbors is one on the most picturesque drives in Minnesota. Each year countless visitors travel the route to take in the majestic views of Lake Superior, crossing the nearly 100-year old French River Bridge along the way.

Vic’s crane service manager Jimmy Widman has been on site for more crane lifts than he can count. But in July, he witnessed one like he’d never seen before, as his own home was lifted high above the tree tops.

Transporting, assembling, and placing objects on a foundation doesn’t sound complicated, but the task becomes quite a feat when it involves engine blocks weighing almost half a million pounds. Recently, Vic’s helped complete a project for Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO), that involved just that. The heavy haul project involved the transportation, assembly, and placement of three engine blocks, each weighing 445,000 pounds at the CIPCO’s Summit Lake Generating Station.

Earlier this year, Vic’s Crane & Heavy Haul opened a new location in the Twin Ports area, making it easier than ever for customers in Duluth, Superior and the surrounding region to use our services. Recently we performed an interesting lift in our expanding work area that involved a delicate relocation of industrial equipment.

The climate in Minnesota varies widely from summer to winter. It’s important to make sure you can provide your customers with comfortable shopping temperatures all year round. For this reason, Vic’s Crane and Heavy Haul was hired by Range Cornice Heating and Sheet Metal to provide crane services to move new heating and cooling units to Iron Range shopping hub, Irongate Plaza.

While crossing a creek on a haul in Iowa, Vic’s employees were presented with a bridge weight limit challenge that required them to think outside the box, or in this case, the bridge. The payload was a transformer that when combined with the weight of the heavy haul trailers reached more than 200 tons, but they needed to cross a bridge with a weight limit of only 40 tons. It was time to get creative.

This fall, a new City of Minneapolis Public Service Building is slated to open downtown, at 505 Fourth Ave. S. Recently, Vic’s Crane & Heavy Haul joined forces with Mortenson Construction and Modern Piping to give the project a boost. The job involved lifting three chiller pumps to the 10^th floor of the building and then positioning them so they would be ready for use.

Through a collection organized by the Minnesota Subcontractors Association, Vic’s joined other businesses in donating over 2,100 PPE items to local nurses.

This past November, nine Vic’s employees journeyed into Downtown Minneapolis for work. But instead of heading inside one of the metro’s many skyscrapers, they were working to get on top of one. Vic’s was hired by Master Mechanical to lift HVAC equipment onto the roof of the 315-foot Rand Tower. The project ended up being one of the most complicated tasks that Vic’s has completed in quite some time.

Vic’s recently helped install an ATV bridge over the Vermilion River. Learn how our crane services helped complete the sophisticated project in northern Minnesota.

Many power generation facilities, refineries and other industrial plants conduct plant shutdowns on a scheduled basis to perform preventive maintenance. These are large, complex projects that require a lot of skill and planning to be completed on time so the facility can return to operations as quickly as possible.

One of the tools in the ever-expanding toolbox at Vic’s Crane & Heavy Haul is the Goldhofer trailer. When we’re tasked with moving incredibly large pieces of equipment or massive engines, we rely on the strength and durability that Goldhofer trailers provide to get the job done right.

The Glengarry is one of last remaining all-wood boats still in operation along the St. Croix River. Rising flood waters was causing the Glengarry to rise in its boathouse, putting it in danger of smashing into the roof. With ice on the river preventing the crew from simply backing it out of the boathouse, the only other option was to lift it out of the water. Luckily, Vic’s was called in to help.

A major aspect of the work Vic’s Crane & Heavy Haul does on a regular basis is transporting incredibly large objects from water to land and then overland. Often, major pieces of equipment come to us by ship or barge to be delivered to their final destinations. It’s not uncommon for challenges to arise throughout this process, and such was the case when we were tasked with moving massive rings used in the mining industry in Michigan. Luckily, our team’s experience meant we were ready.

Vic’s Crane & Heavy Haul often plays an important role in ensuring those clustered wind farms are up and running in order to provide energy for the region. Along with installation, one of the many areas of service where Vic’s shines is providing wind turbine maintenance to those massive, 80-meter tall structures.

Vic’s recently worked in partnership with the shipping and freight forwarding company Martin Bencher Group on the biggest heavy haul project in company history – offloading 10 reciprocating internal combustion engines from a cargo ship in Michigan’s upper peninsula and transporting them up to 65 miles to new power plants.

Constructed in the heart of downtown Minneapolis, U.S. Bank Stadium was to be a focal point and a hallmark for the direction the franchise was taking. Vic’s stepped in with our tower cranes during the first phase of construction. We continued through the spring of 2014 with the process of setting the pre-cast. Finally, in the summer of 2015, we hoisted the U.S. Bank Stadium sign high into the sky and fixed it in place.

We were contracted to transport a 225,800-pound General Electric natural gas-fueled combustion turbine from an over-the-road transporter to the power block. Additionally, we installed 10 Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) boiler modules (with some weighing up to 100,000 pounds) through the roof of the plant.

Learn how our combination of superior engineering, project management and highly skilled operators were able to safely and efficiently lift three engines weighing 656,313 pounds each off a barge and into a power plant.

East Dubuque Nitrogen Fertilizers, LLC (formerly known as Rentech Nitrogen, LLC) gave us a call for help on a particularly big lift – the heaviest single crane lift in our company’s history, actually. First up was our heavy haul crew, who successfully completed the railway offload, transport to the site, and lift into place of the 702,450-pound ammonia converter vessel to assist in an expansion project for the company.