A large generator from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant made its way down Route 441 Thursday.
Considerable preparation was needed for the move of a large generator on Route 441 Thursday.
After several delays, a 460-ton generator mothballed since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island began its crawl through western Lancaster County Thursday.
It will take until early Saturday morning to pull the oversized cargo from TMI down Route 441 and across the Route 30 bridge into York County.
A 21-foot-wide transporter carrying the 14-foot-high electrical generator and pulled by a huge tractor used in surface mining left TMI around 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
About 60 people, including escort and machinery drivers, riggers, crane operators and 30 flagmen, accompanied the transporter in its stop-go journey down Route 441.
Moving at a top speed of about 10 mph, the caravan was to stop for the night at the Armstrong ceiling plant north of Marietta.
VIDEO: TMI generator makes its way down Route 441
"We've had no showstoppers," said Roger Simpson. He said the journey was slow but met no major delays. Simpson is project manager for Bigge Crane and Rigging Co., the California-based outfit hired for the move.
Small groups of onlookers watched the entourage pass.
Simpson said road closures were brief and side roads were reopened as the rig passed.
The biggest obstacle on Thursday's march was Conoy Creek, south of Bainbridge. Since the bridge is too narrow for the transporter, a temporary 160-foot-long steel "overbridge" was built with cranes atop the existing bridge and the generator pulled up and over the span. The temporary bridge then was immediately disassembled.
The rig was scheduled to spend the night at Armstrong's plant. The moving company's schedule to PennDOT said the rig would be at Armstrong at 4 p.m., but at that time the transporter was still north of Bainbridge.
Friday, no moving is planned until 6:30 p.m. when cranes will build another overbridge over the Chiques Creek bridge south of Marietta.
The Route 30 bridge is scheduled to be closed from about midnight to about 4 a.m. Saturday.
Once in York County, the generator will be hauled to Havre de Grace, Md., where it will be loaded onto a barge and shipped down the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean to Portsmouth, Va.
There it will complete its journey by train to the Shearon Harris nuclear plant near Raleigh, N.C.
The generator, which turns steam into electricity, will be used to boost power capacity at the plant.
The generator had operated for only three months at TMI's Unit 2 reactor when the infamous accident occurred on March 28, 1979.
The equipment was housed in the turbine building and was not contaminated with radiation.
The move from TMI had been scheduled to begin in March. It was delayed by high water.
Then, PennDOT refused to give the movers a permit until they shored up rusting metal girders under the Route 30 bridge.
The generator move is not as large or as disruptive as the transport of two massive new steam generators to TMI that inched through Lancaster County last fall.