The Insane Transportation of a 17-ton Magnet

Select videos courtesy of Getty Images

Select videos courtesy of the AP Archive

Special thanks to MapTiler / OpenStreetMap Contributors and GEOlayers 3

[convolve]

Who else thought that the reason why it couldn't be transported simply was because it would act like a magnet and destroy the surrounding iron infrastructure in the city

[briangarrow]

I was part of the crew that was responsible for moving a nuclear reactor and associated machinery in Washington state back in the early 1980’s. The reactor was shipped from Chattanooga Tennessee by barge through the Panama Canal and then north along the Pacific Ocean into Grays Harbor and up the Chehalis River to the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant. A new heavy duty barge dock had to be built to offload the structures and then special crawlers used to move it into place at the construction site.
All of this was part of my apprenticeship before I reached the legal drinking age, (21), in Washington state. And that was just one of the many incredible jobs I participated in as a young man while working in construction.

[ChineduOpara]

I think you needed to mention that this is an ELECTROmagnet. If it was a regular "permanent" magnet, it'd never have made it out the building without taking many lives with it.

[cahr]

My physics professor was actually on the team who helped move this ring, i believe he said it was actually a superconductor whose main responsibility is to study the wobble of particles called muons. The craziest part about this move is what the public originally thought about this ring! When they were transporting it out of brookhaven it had to be at night so they could close the highways, people are very suspicious of brookhaven in general so many spread the rumor across long island and most of the us that they had seen a ufo come out of the labs. as you can see in the video the superconductor very much so looks like a ufo especially when it’s in its contraption! Still can’t believe my physics prof was a main contributor towards this project

[ManaSampler]

For those wondering: It cost ~$3Million to transport this way, a 90% savings off the $30Million to build a new one!

[yahlifenigstein]

Imagine how many Toyota Corollas the magnet could hold🤯

[zulumagoo]

Former trucker. I approve this move. Perfect to minimize traffic mishaps.

[antnob]

Funny story about this magnet:
A small group of people and I once got a special tour of the muon-g2 experiment from the project lead. During this tour he told us about how they found the superconducting ring was after they first purchased it from the brookhaven lab but before they transported it. Apparently, a family of raccoons and mice had made a home in the insulation around the magnet over the years that it was out of service. So before they could move it, they sent something like a week taking the insulation off and cleaning all the feces and junk the mice and raccoons left behind. He said it was one of the worst smells.

[getyourshinebox]

I just assumed the biggest logistical problem would be that everything along the route would stick to it.

[busslayer]

I had no idea there was a navigable waterway from Mobile back to the Mississippi. I traced it back, it goes from the Mobile River, to the Tombigbee, to the Tennessee, to the Ohio. I assumed based on the barge path around Florida they planned to just go up the Mississippi the whole way.

[pf]

for anyone wondering, since its not in the video, it cost about 3million dollars to move the magnet.

[satyarthasaxena]

That super massive crane you mentioned is actually very tiny. I work in the petroleum industry and we recently did a lift of 2200 MT reactor using a Sarens 3200MT crane. So yeah, 17T is absolutely not massive.

[samwill]

Not even just "Hell yea, science" but ALSO "hell yea, human cooperation" Like holy hell every single person involved in this requires a ncie big pat on the back and a drink for getting this from point A to Point B

[drowned]

"Hey babe, come over."
"I can't, it would take me 90 days to get there by land"
"My parents aren't home"
The magnet:

I can see Fermilab right out of my back window. Super trippy hearing my town name and the lab in a popular video. They’d take us there on field trips to see the buffalo or ox (I can’t remember) they have grazing the property and they’d also have career fairs inside the main building. Having them explain how the particle accelerator worked when I was in middle school pushed me to a career in science. Excellent video, though, I hadn’t heard about this event when it happened.

[hythlodaeus]

Oh my god I remember running across this thing when my mom was driving me somewhere that day. Always stuck with me as something that was just plain weird, glad to finally find out what the hell it was all about

[seneca]

At first I thought this was a permanent magnet and that that was the reason why it was so difficult to move.

[taylorgayhart]

Imagine getting stuck in traffic behind that! The weirdest traffic I’ve ever been in was getting stuck behind a plane. It was a small plane (like 4-6 passengers probably) but it was just driving down the road. I have no idea where they were going, and they didn’t have a police escort so I don’t know if they were really supposed to be there, but they were just driving like a car down the road…

[blackpearl-]

Imagine if that was a mega neodymium magnet instead of a electromagnet! That would certainly be the biggest challenge. 🤯

[RealEngineering]

God damn it Joseph. How do you come up with these video ideas. You genius