You Think You Are Having A Bad Day, Look At This!!!

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A buddy of mine texted this to me a while ago. For those that are not familiar with oilfield equipment, this is a reel of coil tubing used for doing service work down in a oilwell that is generally under hydrostatic pressure. The reel of tubing is about 2.063" OD or 2.375" OD and probably about 5,000 to 6,000 foot long. This is a replacement reel that was going to a company that has coil tubing trucks to exchange or replace a worn out reel of tubing. It appears the trailer hit high center on the road bed, plowed up the asphalt, almost dumped the reel of coil tubing. That reel of tubing weighs around 150,000 to 175,000 lbs.!!!

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i worked for a drayage company when i was a bit younger.
one day, a driver of the 5T articulated boom lift truck had a load on the bed and didn't fully retract the boom stick and hook.
the boom and stick stuck up a bit over 15' in that condition- the driver tried to pass under a 14'2" overpass at 55 mph :bang head:
it took wreckers nearly 2 hours to free the truck.
the truck never rolled again under it's own power & the pucker marks will never come out of the driver's seat. ;)
 
I used to work for a company that made cruisers, 45, 53 and 60 foot yachts. They were based on Lake Erie, and shipped 'boats' all over the world.
They were sending a 53 footer to a marine show in Miami one spring, had the deck house and flying bridge disassembled and stacked on the deck, thus reducing the height by several feet. It was travelling on a flat-bed truck. The driver had a pole to equal or exceed the height of the load. He got as far as Atlanta, saw an overpass ahead, stopped, walked his pole through the overpass, no sweat. Started up and took about 1 foot off most of the deckhouse. 'Twas the same as High Center, except it was low center under the bridge. The trailer was long enough that when the cab started up, the back end was still going down and it stopped the truck. He backed out, lashed down all the loose stuff and returned to the factory. We rebuilt the deck house and sold it for a bargain to someone who never new the whole story.
 
doesn't seam like a good trailer choice...

while we are on the subject..a couple months ago I came upon a similar rig carrying long bridge trusses....they guy is driving in the left lane ALL lights are blinking...I go to pass (three lanes) over next thing i know there is a guy in front of me yelling can't you see the ####### turn signals..and points to the blinking lights....after lots of bad words from the guy I said when ALL the lights are blinking how in the bologna sandwich can YOU TELL...me and the 5 people behind me thought the same thing...
 
Ken, you don't happen to know where that happened do you? I try to keep a finger on the coil tubing world. A lot of my work, when I'm actually doing it, is in that area. It's been rumored that the Permian is picking up, with companies buying lots and lots of property and drilling rights. They must know something.

Incidentally, the coil tubing motors I build are 2-3/16" mostly, with development in smaller, 1-7/8" sizes. I have future plans for tools up to 4-1/2", but they are a long ways off at the moment. I have been asked to develop a hydraulic jar for 4-1/2" holes, but that too is a ways off.
 
I worked with a guy, Jack Donahue, back in the 1980's who, besides being a good equipment mechanic, also had a heavy hauling operation on the side. He got a job to haul a M1 Abrams tank down from northern California to the southern California desert for the military. He loaded it with the 105 mm barrel facing forward, and in a low position, but did not tie the barrel down. I guess the barrel was lifted hydraulically, and while he was driving, the barrel ratcheted its way gradually upward as it went over larger bumps in the road. Finally, in downtown Los Angeles on an early weekday morning on a major freeway, the barrel caught the side of an freeway overpass at about 55 mph. Broke the overpass pretty badly, but it did not come down because of all the steel in it, took the tank off the trailer rig, and stopped LA traffic for that day and well beyond. It must have scared the crap out of him. After that day we nicknamed him "Cannonball" Donahue, and the name stuck for at at least as long as I knew him.
 
Any one that has been in the heavy haul truck transportation business could write a book on cargo and property damage. I recall back in the day we were moving Apache helicopters from North Ft. Hood, Tx to Port of Beaumont. One of the securement devices on the tail rotor of one of the aircraft came lost and we hit an over pass with it as it had rotated to a vertical position. Uncle Sam likes to be reimbursed for those things. Conversely, I had two trailers totaled because of loader error in driving heavy tracked vehicles onto the trailers. Never got paid for those.
 
Tony Wells said:
Ken, you don't happen to know where that happened do you? I try to keep a finger on the coil tubing world. A lot of my work, when I'm actually doing it, is in that area. It's been rumored that the Permian is picking up, with companies buying lots and lots of property and drilling rights. They must know something.

Incidentally, the coil tubing motors I build are 2-3/16" mostly, with development in smaller, 1-7/8" sizes. I have future plans for tools up to 4-1/2", but they are a long ways off at the moment. I have been asked to develop a hydraulic jar for 4-1/2" holes, but that too is a ways off.
Click to expand...

Tony,
That tubing very well could have been something smaller but I doubt it. I know there's a lot of 2.063 at one time, but who knows. I don't deal with coil tubing tools, been asked to, just not my cup of tea. This happen somewhere near around Pleasanton. That's where most of the service companies have their yards set up at for the Eagleford.
Ken
 
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