
Massive Zurich building completes 19-hour trip (2012) - wglb
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/multimedia/mobile-home_massive-zurich-building-completes-19-hour-trip/32745688
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Animats
Moving heavy things is quite routine. Mammoet [1] is one of the leading
companies in that business. One of their unusual tools are fleets of Self-
Propelled Modular Transporters. These are wheeled self-propelled platforms
with hydraulic lifts. All wheels are powered, steerable, and liftable. [2]
Each platform can lift 44 tons per axle. These can be ganged together to make
big moving platforms. Hundreds can be ganged together if necessary. They're
all coordinated by onboard computers, so that one person with a wired remote
can control the whole system.[3]

As a company, Mammoet is unusual. The company has been in business for over
200 years. The headquarters is in the Netherlands, in a round building called
"The Bollard", which they moved once. (Yes, the whole building.) They operate
all over the world. They have seven locations in the US alone. Because of the
nature of their business, they run a training academy and have very well
trained people. Their basic approach is to plan very carefully, be very
cautious, and then do the big job very smoothly. Mammoet is the opposite of
"move fast and break things". They move slowly and don't break things. Yet
they usually finish ahead of schedule and under budget.

They're hiring.

[1] [http://www.mammoet.com/](http://www.mammoet.com/) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL3YvOe0ZgE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL3YvOe0ZgE)
[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER7JKXYdIhY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER7JKXYdIhY)

~~~
mmosta
That is the smoothest pitch I've had the pleasure of reading

~~~
Animats
I have no connection with Mammoet. I just like the way they deal with
difficult and dangerous jobs with very little drama.

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ChuckMcM
I always wonder how GIS databases deal with that (since often they have the
notion that buildings of this size "never" move). And I'm not only impressed
with the engineering feat, but how the public and the owner worked together on
a solution with both were ok with. In the US it would have sat in litigation
for 15 years while no railroad work was done, and eventually the building
would just be torn down even though the rail project had long since been
abandoned. (ok maybe that is too cynical)

~~~
cromulent
OpenStreetMaps seems to show the building in the new position.

[https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=oerlichon#map=17/...](https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=oerlichon#map=17/47.41031/8.54073)

~~~
mtmail
Here's the change, about 1 week after the article was published.
[https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/11751043](https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/11751043)
The commit doesn't have a comment, but a new field 'note: position after
movement estimated' was added by the committer. A year later another mapper
added building color and material, last year a mapper added the full address
and today somebody added the building name "Oerlikon" because that's what
people usually refer to (Openstreetmap's search updates almost minutely).

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sschueller
This project is part of the expansion of Bahnhof Oerlikon. The
"durchmesserlinie" is the tunnel [2] that ends/starts at Bahnhof Oerlikon and
goes to the Main Station which got a new underground train station[1].
Oerlikon had to have two additional tracks added which required the moving of
the historic building.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrich_Hauptbahnhof#L.C3....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrich_Hauptbahnhof#L.C3.B6wenstrasse_station)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinberg_Tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinberg_Tunnel)

[3]
[http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/extern/storytelling/sbb/assets/i...](http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/extern/storytelling/sbb/assets/images/infografik-8a6a2c40.jpg)

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK3ZWcMQ2qs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK3ZWcMQ2qs)
(German)

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Ftuuky
My father worked for a swiss company exclusively dedicated to move buildings
from one place to another, like 20 years ago. I remember his anxiety when he
was responsible for the transportation of this old church in Lucerne. He
eventually came back to his home country and now restores medieval buildings
to become summer houses for the rich.

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jacquesm
Moving brick buildings is extremely tricky because brick is absolutely
unforgiving when it comes to dealing with tensile stress. Super impressive
this.

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ciokan
7600 ton apartment building moved in romania in the 80's
[http://i.imgur.com/89bfkSI.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/89bfkSI.jpg)

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infectoid
Impressive.

I also thought someone was having a laugh when they told me about the Raising
of Chicago.

> During the 1850s and 1860s engineers carried out a piecemeal raising of the
> level of central Chicago. Streets, sidewalks and buildings were either built
> up, relocated, or physically raised on hydraulic jacks or jackscrews. The
> work was funded by private property owners and public funds.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago)

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_sunshine_
Moving massive buildings was quite common in Romania during the communist
regime, to make room for large boulevards:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/29b7pi/moving_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/29b7pi/moving_a_7600_ton_apartment_building_to_create_a/)

~~~
rwmj
I remember when this building was moved in Warrington (UK) in 1981:

[http://www.engineering-
timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem...](http://www.engineering-
timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=597)

------
polemic
Less impressive, but they moved a historic tavern in Auckland, NZ, recently to
make way for a cut & cover motorway tunnel.

[http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/time-lapse-video-of-
birdcage...](http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/time-lapse-video-of-birdcages-
move-2010083108#axzz43TUujHcd)

Pricy, but I'm glad they kept the landmark.

~~~
bnjm
They moved the Museum Art Hotel in Wellington in 1993. At 3000 tonnes it's
half the weight of the Zurich building, but they moved it 120m, which is twice
as far. Pretty impressive!

[http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-
post/news/wellington/9054381...](http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-
post/news/wellington/9054381/Training-all-eyes-on-shifting-a-hotel)

------
andor
[2012]

~~~
wglb
Thanks--fixed.

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anotheryou
Possible inspiration:
[https://youtu.be/7YUiBBltOg4?t=46](https://youtu.be/7YUiBBltOg4?t=46) (Monty
Python = Accountancy Shanty )

And "up" was probably the inspiration for the helium balloons on top :)

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sudhirj
Heh. I once migrated a 1GB database from MySQL to Postgres. That was cool too.

