Barnhart won the 2015 SC&RA Job of the Year Award after transporting a reformer vessel more than 1,600 miles from Tulsa, OK, to Lima, OH by means of barge and over-the-road trucking. The vessel was 73 feet long and weighed 425,000 pounds. The vessel's size necessitated the creation of the longest and widest dolly transporter that Barnhart ever assembled. The result was a 300-foot-long, 24-foot wide, 18-foot, 9-inch high permitted load with a gross weight of 885,000 pounds.
The vessel was transported 13 miles from Tulsa to the Port of Catoosa, where the cargo - including the transporter-was loaded onto a barge for the 1,357-mile transport to Burns Harbor, IN, followed by another 235-mile haul to the final destination in Lima.
Before the vessel could begin the final leg of its journey, the team at Barnhart had to overcome one last hurdle: getting past the Lemont Bridge which spans the canal connecting Lake Michigan to the Illinois River.
The bridge has a clearance of 19 feet between the water's surface and the bottom of the bridge; the top of the transport measured more than 22 feet from the surface. The Barnhart team ballasted the barge to within two inches of the bottom of the bridge, transiting the canal without incident.