But a Gatesville manufacturing company - Kalyn Siebert - is now producing a high-tech trailer complete with wireless remote control they say maneuvers around corners almost like an everyday 18-wheeler.
Company welders and fabricators are now using a unique design to transform 36 wheels and 40 tons of steel into the Double-Schnabel Tower Transporter.
Here’s how it works: The trailer comes in two pieces. A driver backs up each half to opposite ends of the wind tower section - which measures 60 feet long and weighs 60 tons. (It’s so massive, your voice echoes inside.) Next, he operates the hydraulic lifts and raises the tower to riding height.
Without the Double-Schnabel, crane operators lifted tower sections onto lowboy trailers and drivers climbed on top of the units to secure them. Tare Kennedy said his company - Owen-Kennedy Specialized Transportation - has hauled about 100 wind towers the old-fashioned way over the last few years. He bought the first Double-Schnabel and has more on order.
“It actually picks the tower up. The driver never has to climb on anything. That’s a huge issue. You eliminate that risk,” Kennedy said. “It’s just a cutting-edge piece of equipment. It not only steers on the rear making it easier to corner, it self loads.”
But moving the sections (it takes about six stacked and bolted together to make one tower.) is only one-third of the job. Transporting the giant propellers and turbines also presents challenges.
Kalyn Siebert can handle that too. It recently introduced Siebert Wind, a line of trailers built specifically for transporting wind turbines.
A 13-axle deck trailer holds the nacelle, a nose-cone shaped housing that contains components which turn wind energy into electricity. And a blade trailer that expands like a telescope can stretch from 53 to 158 feet to accommodate propellers.
All trailers feature a rear steering system with hand-held, wireless remote control the driver can use to walk the trailer around tight corners.
General manager Tom Smith remembers when he hired on 35 years ago the small outfit was simply Kalyn Manufacturing Co. and specialized in livestock trailers for pickups. He has seen the company grow to one of Gatesville’s largest employers - 180 - on a sprawling 320-acre complex with 272,000 square feet under roof. Looking back to that time, he says he never imagined he’d be involved in building trailers like these.
Design engineer Bryan Taylor has worked in the trailer manufacturing business 10 years, five at Kalyn Siebert. Building heavy-haulers is an everyday thing, he said, but designing this trio was both challenging and cool.
“It was a blast. Getting to do things outside the box. A lot of work, but a lot of fun,” Taylor said. “A setup like this will go pretty much anywhere a regular 53-foot van trailer will go, a Wal-Mart delivery trailer, anything like that.”
The American Wind Energy Association ranks Texas first in existing wind energy capacity and second in potential capacity. The State Energy Conservation Office reported in 2007 Texas accounted for about one-third of the nation’s total installed wind capacity.
A Central Texas manufacturing company hoping to capture some of that market (General Electric and Mitsubishi are two big players) announced last summer plans to build a wind tower manufacturing plant in nearby McGregor. But construction has temporarily stopped, a Chamber of Commerce employee said on Friday.
Kalyn Manufacturing Co. opened in 1961. It bought California-based Siebert Trailers in 1991, and changed the name to Kalyn Siebert. Today it is owned by the Dover Corp.
