High Lift

And speaking of cranes, as I was… The Sahara hotel was directly to the west of the Money Tree and although they had two tower cranes on the project, they needed one very powerful crane to make a lift that the tower cranes couldn’t. It was a cooling tower assembly that had to be on the roof. And one day a train arrived in Reno and unloaded a brand new Manitowoc crane that would do the job. It had over 300’ of ‘stick’ and a lengthy jib section as well. The equipment made a grand parade up Second Street as they headed to the job site. We heard that the manufacturer was selling this crane to someone in the Bay area, but since it was passing through Reno on the train, they might as well try it out for one tall and heavy lift.

Once they were at the site and they had the crane situated on Sierra Street, they brought in the trucks that held all of the boom sections. These were quickly unloaded by the tower cranes and ‘shook out’ along the road so that the ironworkers could assemble them and string the cables.

The rumor that quickly circulated was this; the crane was so powerful that it was going to be able to lift its own boom off of the street. Most cranes needed another crane to help in getting the mast vertical. Of course everyone wanted to see this!

There were probably a couple hundred construction workers lining the sidewalks when the operator fired up the big diesel engine that powered this giant. Outriggers were extended into a blocked off traffic lane. It was time. Sure enough, a large cloud of black smoke erupted from the stack and the boom began to lift free of the pavement. We were impressed. And in less than a minute the boom was vertical and easily reaching past the 24 stories of the Sahara.

A little while later, the cooling tower arrived on a truck and it was almost anticlimactic as the crane easily swung it up onto the roof. One lift. They were through and the crane was scheduled to be taken apart and put back on the train during the next two days, to continue its journey to the Bay area.

Of course we all speculated; what did that cost? Hey! It’s a casino. Money was no object…