Stuck rig gridlocks Danville bridge

DANVILLE - Traffic on the Danville-Riverside Bridge was tied up for six hours Monday after a tractor-trailer carrying a wide load turned onto the bridge and got stuck.

A crane was called in to move the trailer, which was hauling a section of a wind turbine tower.

The truck became stuck at about 11:30 a.m. and was cleared from the bridge at about 5:30 p.m.

The trailer mowed down a tree and tore up some grass along East Front Street in front of Zamboni Park as the driver tried to avoid a light pole.

At about 1:30 p.m., after nearly two hours of maneuvering, a tire on the trailer blew out and the axle bent from a ride over the curb, police said.

At about 3:30 p.m., a crane from Zartman Construction near Northumberland arrived and lifted the 200,000-pound trailer off the curb and into the roadway.

It took two lifts and almost two hours to reposition the truck.

Police were frustrated with driver Michael Marshall from South Carolina because a similar load came through the borough just after 10 a.m. and got stuck.

That driver unhooked the truck from that trailer, repositioned it, and got going again in about 40 minutes, police said.

'Too costly'

Danville Police Chief Eric Gill said the borough will bill the trucking company for damage and the time officers, sheriff's deputies the borough street crew and others spent working on the bridge.

Four more similar loads were scheduled to travel through the boroughthis week, but Gill said he asked PennDOT to reroute them around Danville.

"We don't have the manpower or resources to handle them," he said. "It's too costly to do these oversized loads. Someone needs to start compensating us."

Gill said the borough has had dozens of large loads travel through the borough this year, sometimes up to five a day.

'Prototype' trailer

Because of the damaged axle and wheel, police put the truck out of service.

It was backed onto East Front Street and parked for the night, and a block between Route 54 and Mill Street was shut down.

The trailer will have to be repaired and inspected before it can be moved, police added.

The base section for a wind turbine was on its way from Toronto to West Virginia, said Melissa Damm, the driver of the rear escort vehicle.

She said Zartman's charged the trucking company $2,000 for the crane, about $1,000 less than the usual fee.

The trailers normally don't get hung up, she said, but the one she was following was a new "prototype."

The trailer has three pivotingrear axels to eliminate the need for a second driver to steer the rear of the trailer, she said.

But if just one of the axles turns, it "kicks out the rear," she said.

The 150-foot long rig just can't make some corners, she said, but routes are set by PennDOT.

She said the rig exited Interstate 80 at the Danville Exit due to construction.

Route closed

Fire police closed Route 54 east at Route 11, and traffic on Mill Street could not turn left to cross the bridge.

Police said Geisinger, the Danville Area School District and Cherokee Pharmaceuticalswere alerted about the bridge closure so they could plan accordingly.

Officials estimated that traffic on the other side of the bridge was backed up for miles.