Carlile’s Cozad Carries the Really Big Loads
ON THE ROAD IN ALASKA - Two things make the trip from Anchorage to the oil and natural gas production site on Alaska’s North Slope memorable. One is the size and weight of the single-unit payloads — prefabricated buildings that weigh as much as 100 tons.
The other is successfully completing the trip. The road paralleling the Alaska pipeline is the only route, and it is a dangerous one for hauling this kind of cargo. The route turns to gravel about 80 miles out of Fairbanks and rolls over steep hills and through tight curves for the remaining 400 miles.
In business since 1980, Carlile, an Anchorage-based company, hauls general and specialty freight within and outside the largest state in the union. This is the third winter that Carlile will provide the transportation to move the largest of Alaska’s truckable modules to the oil and gas fields lining Prudhoe Bay. Last year, the company moved three of the modules, which measure as large as 14 feet tall, 20 feet wide and 80 feet long, to the North Slope. On the next trip, Carlile plans to deliver five of the buildings.
Carlile’s Cozad trailer was manufactured by Cozad Trailers in Stockton, Calif. It has a 125-ton capacity and a deck that can be configured in different lengths from 20 feet to 80 feet, and is the key piece of equipment for moving modules to the North Slope. It has 80 tires and 40 sets of wedge-type brakes. The Cozad trailer also has a rail deck for moving cranes and other equipment.
 |  Randy Brutsche |
| Carlile Transportation Systems’s convoy - including 4 500-hp push trucks - rounds “44 mile,” one of the most challenging grades on the haul road to Alaska’s North Slope. |
Also, the best hauling season is winter. The roadbeds are frozen solid and free of pot holes.
Beginning the first of the year, Carlile Transportation Systems will provide a way to make that trip less difficult. The company will move several of the “truckable” modules with the help of Cozad trailers.
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For the full story, see the Oct. 23 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
