Port Of Portland Contracts Liftech For Crane Upgrade

The Port of Portland Commission recently contracted with Oakland, Calif.-based Liftech Consultants, Inc. for the design of an upgrade for one of the Port's oldest container cranes at Terminal 6 (T-6). The new design will serve as the blueprint for engineers to retrofit the 1970sera crane to post-panamax capability, in order to enable it to better serve vessels that call at T-6, especially during high water conditions, and facilitate the servicing of a larger, new generation of ships calling at the Port.

The redesign will involve increasing the crane's height by 19 ft. (5.7 m) to 95 ft. (28.9 m), extending its boom by 26 ft. (7.9 m) to 145 ft. (44.1 m), reducing its overall width by 19 ft. to 88.5 ft. (26.9 m), and doubling the distance or gauge between the unit's legs.

Last fall, the Port installed its first 100-ft. (30.4-m) gauge, post-panamax container crane at T-6. To serve the new crane, a new set of rails had to be laid that were twice as wide as the existing rails used by the other five panamaxsized cranes at the container terminal. The Port's only other post-panamax crane was recently relocated from Terminal 2 on the Willamette Rive, to its new working home at T-6 on the Columbia River. This move was necessary to increase T-6's container handling capacity and productivity as the Port's container business continues to expand. The crane and rail upgrades are part of a three-year, approximately $40-million Terminal 6 enhancement and expansion program.