Track Mounted Gangways

Helping a chemical company access their tanker truck

Track Mounted Gangway

SafeRack worked with a fine chemical manufacturing company needed help accessing their trucks in a safe and efficient way. The environment, like any chemical environment, was filled with highly hazardous materials, melts and solids and all safety precautions must be met to ensure the safety of this company’s workers. The goal of the company was to be able to spot the truck one time and access multiple hatches of the tanker truck. Employees needed access to all hatches in order to vent the top of the trucks while bottom unloading and also to take samples if and when needed.
The company called the experts at SafeRack to help with their accessing challenge. SafeRack jumped right in, visited the site and met with the team. There were a few challenges that had to be overcome in order to achieve the project’s goals. There were space restrictions on the centerline. The customer had a lane with curbs already built in so SafeRack had to modify their centerline to fit the already existing curbed lane. In addition, SafeRack had to be far enough from the bottom loading arms that their pedestals were not in the way of unloading. They spaced their pedestals accordingly to minimize obstructions. The SafeRack team determined the height of the platform by making sure that they were above the unloading arms, but not so high up that they had overhead obstructions of existing pipe.

In addition, the customer had time restraints and the project had to get done quickly. It became an immediate priority for SafeRack to meet the project timeline and their lead time was much faster compared to other vendors.

SafeRack installed a 40’ tracking gangway, which allowed the customer to maximize efficiency. They were able to spot the truck one time, access all hatches and also be near an unloading hose. In addition, SafeRack installed a modified stair unit. The customer had existing piperack supports in the way that SafeRack needed to fit between. Going off to the right continuing parallel was not an option as SafeRack would have blocked an access road.

Instead, SafeRack strategically placed the stair access on the platform so they could come down, drop a landing and then continue an additional stair unit between obstructions of existing piperack supports.

The customer was pleased working with SafeRack and could see their competitive advantage over other potential partners right away. The SafeRack site visit was key. Getting the team on site, taking the right measurements to make the customer comfortable with the solution that the SafeRack team came up with, and meeting their customer was an essential part of the process. SafeRack proposed a solution that they wanted and most importantly that worked!