Earlier this month, the New York & Ogdensburg Railway Co. (NYOG) delivered a unit train of thirty 180-foot wind turbine blades to the Port of Ogdensburg, N.Y. — the first rail shipment of blades that large in North America, according to the short line, which is part of the Vermont Rail System.
NYOG played a role in the blades’ 1,700-mile move from Vestas Blades America Inc.’s facility in Brighton, Colo., to Chateauguay, N.Y., where a Marble River wind farm plans to generate enough electricity to power up to 60,000 homes annually.
Vestas chose the port as a staging point for the project because of its location, rail access and infrastructure, which is ideally suited to handling large, specialized shipments, NYOG officials said in a news item posted on the Vermont Rail System’s web site. The blades arrived by rail, but other components, towers, nacelles, gearboxes and nose cones are being imported and will arrive by vessel, they said.
NYOG worked with the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority and CSX Transportation on the blade move. Three more unit trains of blades are expected to make similar runs by July.
Source: Progressive Railroading Daily News
