Some exceptional transports are even more exceptional than others: the Dutch specialist Mammoet has again provided proof by moving a wooden church from 1912 in Kiruna, in the north of Sweden.
IJzererts is both a blessing and a curse for Kiruna. The State Mine Company LKAB has been winning there for more than 100 years and has dug a huge network of deeper and deeper underground corridors. In these corridors, Volvo Trucks carried out its first tests with self -driving trucks about ten years ago. The problem is that the expansion of the mine of subsidence and instability causes the historic center of the city. That is why entire neighborhoods must be moved to the east: it concerns around 6,000 homes, public buildings and therefore also a famous wooden church from 1912, which was voted the most beautiful building in Sweden in 2001.
The challenge was huge: the church had to be moved in one piece, with a weight of 713 tons, over a distance of five kilometers. The move lasted two days, but more than 1000 hours of planning preceded it. First the church had to be raised 1.30 meters and placed on a superstructure of steel beams, which in turn were placed on two rows of 28 self-driving Cometto modules. In order for the 40 -meter wide convoy to pass, roads had to be widened, while a control system developed by Mammoet had to ensure that the maximum slope between the two sides was not more than 7.5 cm, to prevent the church from turning too strongly. After having driven a walking pace for two days, the church could be placed on its new concrete foundation … Far away from the zones made unstable by the mine corridors.
“This was not a good heavy transport – it was a piece of cultural history that had to be retained with the greatest precision,” explains Justin Vreugdenhil, headwide of marketing and communication at Mammoet. “Our Cometto SPMTs have shown their assets: maximum maneuverability, absolute reliability and precision, even under extreme conditions. Faymonville group (owner of the Cometto brand).
