Premay Equipment Ltd. call themselves "Transport Architects." What does that mean?

Darell Irvine, Maintenance Supervisor: "Our main task in this facility is transporting equipment and vessels and building modules to the tar sands at Fort McMurray. That's a little over 350 miles northeast, but the roads we have to use stretch that out to about 450 miles or so.

"Because almost none of our loads are what a trucking company would call 'standard,' we have to create ways to haul them.

"Our people literally design structures, that we then put on wheels and pull and push to their destinations."

You mentioned "tar sands." What are those?

"There's an enormous amount of crude oil trapped in sand north of us. It's not liquid oil, like you get out of wells.

"The oil companies working the tar sands have to 'mine' this sand, digging it out of the ground, then they have to process it to separate the oil.

"We haul what they need, including heavy equipment, vessels, modular buildings and other supplies. Much of it travels up there and then is assembled like a jigsaw puzzle to create facilities that extract the oil."

Editor's note:  Industry experts estimate the tar sands around Fort McMurray may hold as much as 174 BILLION barrels of recoverable oil.

These loads are pretty heavy then?

"We've moved some as big as 1.8 million pounds. Some are also very large - very bulky or very tall. And some are both large and heavy at the same time."

What kind of challenges do those things pose?

"With a very heavy load, you have to figure out a way to get enough tires underneath it to carry it and how to spread the weight over a large enough area so the road surface can support it.

"Fortunately, we have very good roads here in Alberta, and we can put a lot of weight on them. In many cases, what we could accomplish in 60 loads here might take 250 loads someplace else.

"It's not unusual for us to use several hundred tires, or to create what amounts to a 'double-wide' trailer. That big load I mentioned measured about 38 feet by 34 feet by 290 feet.

"We use more or less 'conventional trailers' for some things, and some of these weigh over 100 tons before we put a single pound of payload on them.

"We also use special modules that allow us to create huge, self-propelled platforms.

"One of the reasons we call ourselves 'Transport Architects' is that we create what's needed. There's very little we can pull 'off the shelf' to do what we need."

Vessels, like the one shown on our cover, rest on custom-fabricated steel "saddles," like this one at the Premay lot in Edmonton.

Does that apply to tires too?

"I suppose it would be possible for a tire company to make exactly what we need, but our work is so specialized those tires would probably end up costing more than anyone couldafford.

"So, we look at what's available and try to find tires that will work for us. We're having really good luck with Bridgestone tires."

How is that?

"When we assemble these huge platforms, the tires are attached to what are called 'bogeys,' a little like the bogeys that carry the wheels under railroad cars.

"Especially in turns, the tires and wheels are subjected to enormous strains. We've actually bent wheels as a result of going through a turn. If we can bend a wheel, you can imagine what's happening to the tire.

"The bogeys are surrounded by wires and hydraulic lines, and there's not a lot of clearance. Some of the tires we were using were so wide they were rubbing against the electrical and hydraulic lines as the bogeys tipped under the strain.

"That ended up destroying the tires and damaging the wiring and hydraulics, creating major repair problems.

"We found some Bridgestone tires that are quite a bit narrower at the tread face, allowing the bogeys to tip farther without touching things around them, saving themselves and the hydraulic and electrical systems from damage. That's been a huge performance improvement."

What kind of performance do you expect from tires?

"Unfortunately, because of extreme conditions, the life of any given tire is pretty unpredictable. I figure we have some that could last 20 years and go through four or five caps.

"And, we have tires that are destroyed within the first 20 minutes of their lives. Sometimes, there's not much we can do about it.

"Once we get moving, if a tire is damaged, we may not be able to stop until that evening to repair or replace it. "I'd say a tire that lasts 60,000 miles or so has done a good job for us. A tire that lasts saves us money, much more so than a tire that was 'cheap' to begin with.

"So, I sometimes say Bridgestone tires are 'cheap.' What I mean is we get more of our money's worth from them than we have from some other brands."

Why can't you stop when you have a tire problem?

"We have very strict rules about when we can move loads of the size and weight we haul. Much of the stuff is assembled right here in Edmonton, but we can't travel through the city - other than the middle of the night - because of traffic issues.

"Once we get outside Edmonton, we usually have to travel exclusively during the daytime. And, we can only stop when we come to a spot on the road where we can pull off and get out of the way.

"There are seasonal rules too. We can move maximum loads in the dead of winter, when the ground is frozen deep down. If we have a warm winter, it can limit the amount of hauling we can do.

"In the spring, when everything thaws, the ground under the road is soft, and we can't move anything very heavy. By late summer, when it dries out, we're able to increase weights again.

"We can't start in the morning until after the school buses have made their run, then we have to get to the next place to pull over before the school buses come out again. That makes some days pretty short."

How fast do you go?

"It depends on the load, its weight and its size. With a really tall load, regardless of weight, we have to have crews with us to lift and clear utility lines so we can get past.

"On bridges, we have to lay down special coverings so we don't damage the bridge surface.

"In both cases, of course, we can't go until all that's taken care of, and then everything has to be put back the way it was. On that 1.8 million pound load I mentioned earlier, we only went about 10 miles per hour."

How many people would be involved in one of these hauls?

"The crew could easily be 40 or 50 people. Often, there's one tractor pulling and maybe four pushing, plus we've got all the line lifters, riggers, engineers and so on."

So how long would it take you to get to Fort McMurray?

"It could take seven or eight days to cover the 450 miles involved. With smaller, more compact loads, where we're not so worried about how high the center of gravity is or having to lift utility lines, we can go a bit faster.

"But, when you've got something that large, you don't want to move too fast, because safety is our #1 priority."

At the tar sand "mines" in Fort McMurray, Premay employees load a bulldozer to move it to a new location.

Are there backhauls for you?

"Not many. Sometimes we bring back a piece of equipment, like a Cat D11 or something like that, but generally, we're returning empty."

What happens to all this special equipment you've created when the haul is over?

"One way or another, it all gets recycled. Sometimes, we can modify saddles or bunks to work for a different load. It all becomes raw material for the next haul.

"As 'Transport Architects,' we're creating something new all the time."