The story began in March 2025, when Dutch crane service provider M.J. van Riel removed a 240-tonne gantry crane from the inland port in ’s-Hertogenbosch, also known as Den Bosch, so that it could be overhauled. Once the overhaul was done, the company was tasked with putting the crane back in its place in July. To take care of the job, Van Riel decided to use four cranes working together to lift the gantry crane, with three of the cranes being Tadano all terrain cranes. More specifically, two AC 9.700-1 units and one AC 8.500-1.
“The lift required enormous lifting capacities, which is why we decided on the specific cranes we used,” explains Marketing & Communication Officer, Claire Van Riel. All four cranes were stationed at Van Riel’s headquarters in Tilburg a mere 30 kilometers away or so, so it would take them a short 45 minutes to get to the work site at the Den Bosch port. Once there, the Van Riel team set up every single crane with its full counterweight so that all the machines would be properly prepared for the demanding lift. And since no super lift configurations were required, the team was able to complete this work in around one and a half hours for each crane.
Perfect preparation for a complex lift
The lift itself proved to be significantly more demanding than the relatively straightforward task of setting up the cranes: “Synchronously lifting a load this heavy with four cranes is really complex and requires extremely meticulous planning,” Claire Van Riel says: The load had to be evenly distributed among all four cranes in order to avoid overloading any single one of them. The lifting movements had to be perfectly synchronized so that the load would not overturn or become warped. And last, but not least, communications between all crane operators had to go perfectly smoothly. Every single one of these requirements was met during the lift in Den Bosch, and the Van Riel team was ultimately able to set down the gantry crane in the exact intended position on its rails. To this end, the gantry crane was first lifted to a height of 24 meters, then swung to the side 10 meters, and finally set down with utmost precision.
All done in a single day
Thanks to superb planning, the perfectly coordinated Van Riel team’s ample experience, and, of course, the powerful Tadano cranes used and their sensitive controls, the spectacular job was completed on schedule within a single day.
