When a highway package finishes, the plant that fed it is worth nothing where it stands. It has to be on the next site and crushing before that site's first sub-base layer is due, and between the two lies a road move that can cross three or four states.
Crusher plant shifting is mostly ordinary trailer work. A handful of pieces are not ordinary: they are over-dimensional cargo, ODC, and they are what the permits, the route survey and the convoy exist for. This article covers what makes a load over-dimensional under the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, how ODC transport permission is obtained, which parts of a plant cause the trouble, and the sequence that has the plant running again at the far end.
What counts as over-dimensional cargo under Rule 93
Over-dimensional cargo is a load carried as a single indivisible unit that exceeds the overall dimensions allowed for the vehicle under Rule 93 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989. Over-weight cargo is the same idea applied to the weight limits. Rule 93 was rewritten by the Central Motor Vehicles (Sixth Amendment) Rules, 2020, notified as G.S.R. 414(E) on 26 June 2020, and these are the limits that matter on a plant move.
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Overall width, goods vehicles and trailers | 2.6 m |
| Overall height, open load | 4.0 m |
| Overall length, rigid truck | 12.0 m |
| Overall length, tractor with semi-trailer | 18.75 m |
| Indivisible load, sideways projection | 200 mm each side of a 2.6 m wide vehicle |
| Indivisible load, height | Up to 4.75 m |
| Gross weight, tractor and trailer combination | 55 t, and never more than the axles add up to |
As notified in 2020 and amended since; check the current consolidated rule before fixing a load plan. The projecting part of an indivisible load has to be marked in yellow and black reflective paint or tape, with a red lamp to the rear and a white lamp to the front at each outer edge.
Otherwise no load may extend beyond the sides of the body, ahead of the load body, behind the rear of the vehicle or above the height limit. In practice a piece up to 3.0 m wide travels as an ordinary indivisible load with its marking and lamps. So does a piece about 3.7 m tall, on a low-bed whose deck sits roughly a metre off the road. Anything wider, taller or longer is ODC. Anything that takes the combination past its registered gross weight is over-weight, and the axle limits that set a tipper's payload are the same ones that decide it.
How ODC transport permission is obtained
There are two routes, and they are for different trailers.
The states. Section 110 of the Motor Vehicles Act lets a State Government exempt a vehicle from the dimension rules, on conditions the Centre prescribes. That is why permission for an over-dimensional load on a low-bed is taken from the transport department of each state on the route. The procedure, the fee and the time it takes differ by state, so check the current process for every state the route touches and not only the two at the ends. Running a projecting load without that exemption is an offence under section 194(1A) of the Act: a fine of twenty thousand rupees, the off-loading charges, and the vehicle held until the load is put right.
The Ministry. Loads too heavy or too large for a mechanical low-bed go on modular hydraulic trailers, the multi-axle platforms drawn by a puller tractor. For a single indivisible over-dimensional or over-weight consignment moving on National Highways on those trailers, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways grants permission through its online portal. The application gives the consignment, the trailer combination, the axle loads and the route, and the Ministry's regional offices check it against the bridges on that route. Most pieces of a 250 to 350 TPH plant travel on ordinary low-beds and never come near this system. The heaviest primaries are the ones to check.
Which parts of a plant are heavy and which are awkward
- Primary jaw crusher. The heaviest single piece. Whether it travels whole or with the flywheels and swing jaw taken off is decided by what the tractor and trailer may gross, not by what the crane can lift.
- Cone crushers. Dense and compact. Heavy for their footprint, so axle loading and lashing matter more than dimensions.
- Vibrating screens. The wide loads. A screen box with its drive and springs is usually the piece that decides whether the convoy is over-dimensional in width.
- Feed hopper and grizzly feeder. Wide, tall and mostly air. A bolted hopper comes apart into panels. A welded one travels as it is and sets the height.
- Conveyors. Long. Frames split at their bolted joints into lengths that fit the trailer; belts are pulled, rolled and tagged with the conveyor they came off.
- Structure, chutes, cabin and panels. Ordinary loads in bulk, and the easiest to lose track of. Motors and electrical panels travel covered.
What a route survey looks for
A route survey is a drive of the actual route, with the dimensions and weight of the biggest load in hand, before any trailer is loaded.
- Bridges and culverts. Posted load limits, visible distress, narrow decks. On a hydraulic-trailer move the Ministry's permission itself rules certain bridges out.
- Overhead clearance. Power lines, electrified railway crossings, foot over-bridges, flyovers, toll plaza canopies and the arches at town entrances. A shortfall means a shutdown, a lift or a detour, arranged ahead with whoever owns the wire.
- Turns. Town junctions, roundabouts and ghat hairpins, checked against the swept path of an 18.75 m combination.
- The last kilometres. The approach to a quarry is usually the worst of the journey: steep, unsealed and narrow. It is where a loaded low-bed grounds or loses traction, and one more reason to build the haul road before the plant arrives.
- Restrictions. No-entry hours for heavy vehicles in towns, border check-posts, and somewhere to park a convoy overnight.
The survey can change the load plan. A screen that clears every structure on the highway but not a rail under-bridge near the new site travels with its side plates off, and it is far cheaper to learn that at the old site with a crane standing by.
The sequence for shifting a crusher plant
Order matters because a plant is erected from the ground up, and nothing can be built on a part that is still two states away.
- 01
Strip and mark
Run the plant empty, isolate the power, then dismantle in the reverse of erection: belts, conveyors, chutes, screens, crushers, structure. Match-mark every bolted joint on both sides, tag cables at both ends, bag fasteners by assembly and photograph each stage.
- 02
Load plan
List every piece with its dimensions and weight, give each a trailer, and work out the height on the deck and the axle loads. This sorts the loads into ordinary, indivisible within the Rule 93 relaxations, and ODC. Split whatever can be split.
- 03
Route survey
Drive the route with the biggest load's dimensions. Fix the route, the detours and any shutdowns, and feed what was found back into the load plan.
- 04
Permits
Apply to each state on the route for the over-dimensional loads, or through the Ministry's portal for a hydraulic-trailer consignment. Check every vehicle's own papers. Nothing is loaded until the permission for that load is in hand.
- 05
Convoy
Dispatch in erection order: structure first, the crushers once there is something to stand them on, conveyors and electricals after. Over-dimensional loads move marked and lit, with a pilot vehicle where the permission asks for one, in the hours each state allows.
- 06
Unload in erection order
Lay the yard out before the first trailer arrives, so each piece is set down beside where it will be lifted from. A crane that has to dig the jaw's support frame out from under the conveyors has lost its day.
- 07
Re-erect and commission
Structure onto the foundations, then crushers, screens and conveyors, then cables and belts by their tags. Run empty, run with stone, set the decks to the new contract's grading and pull samples.
Foundations at the new site should be cast while the plant is still on the road, which is what makes the programme in how long a crusher plant takes to set up achievable. Where a site will be short-lived, or the work moves along the alignment, read mobile versus stationary crusher plants before deciding what to move at all.
Moving is the easy half
We move our own plants on our own low-bed trailers and have done it across ten states. It is how a plant gets from a finished project in Karnataka to a new one in Madhya Pradesh. The two Manipur packages were two thousand kilometres from base, and getting plant and crew there was half the contract. The lesson is on the service page in one line: moving the plant is the easy half, and getting it running again at the other end is where the experience shows. On a site with decent access our crews take about two weeks from the machines landing to material coming off the last belt.
If you have a plant to relocate, ours or yours, send the make and capacity, where it stands, where it is going and when the new site needs material. Transportation covers the move. Crusher plant operations covers what happens after the last trailer is unloaded.