equipment pads

[yanmars]

They are putting in some new electric high tension lines/metal poles.. To access the sites they have laid down the following. Over 1 mile of the same. 2x10 inch treated planks, with 3 laid on top of each other for a thickness of 4 1/2 inches. Bolted together. The planks are 14 feet, they make one pad that measures 8 foot long and 14 feet wide. They are carried on a heavy duty pallet loader or a backhoe or track loader. Quite a few at a time. They have short lengths of heavy chains in the pads for ease of placement.
The 14 feet width lets large equipment travel over them. This is being done in ag ground, a lot of corn and beans are flattened to do this but it is in an existing easement for high tension electric towers.
A fair amount of expense with everything involved. I do not know how many miles this will ultimately go or where it originates or ends. Just thought it was interesting.

 

[Birdhunter1]

Interesting they used treated to make them, most of them I've seen are just rough sawn timber. They're doing a large job like this across our farm next year and I'm nots ure if they will use those or not, I doubt they will as I think it would be more on a hindrance on the hills and hillsides around here. They've done some low lying creek and river bottom ground a few years ago and had miles of those mats laid out.