Rails to Trails - Part 1: The Soil

Right after graduating from high school, I enrolled at Washington State University (WSU) located on the eastern border of Washington in Pullman. I was a student from 1961 to 1963.

The urban legend continues that the city was named to honor rail car designer and builder George Pullman.

However, back in 1997, The Spokesman Review (Spokane) quoted Larry Stark, assistance archivist for WSU's Holland Library, as saying "It's all bunk."

The Spokesman Review story goes on to state: "Indeed, the story of George Pullman's connection to the town fits right up there with the Palouse's two other great myths: that Colfax is a speed trap (it isn't) and that Playboy magazine once named Washington State University the No. 1 party school in the nation (it didn't)."

Our journey to Pullman took us from the evergreen forests of Puget Sound over the Cascades to the Inland Empire, traveling over a gazillion miles of concrete slab "Thumper" highways.

"Thumper" highways - which was our family reference - were so called because of the "thump-thump thump-thump" issued by the tires. In transportation lingo, the correct term is "slab pumping." Click on "Play Animation."

At one time or another, many of these early centers of commerce were ravaged by fire. Following a series of great fires, red brick becomes the main building material in the Palouse. Virtually every edifice on the Washington State University campus is constructed with red brick.

1882: Colfax nearly destroyed by fire on July 14, 1882. The fire claimed all of the fledgling city's records. Rebuilt with red brick and continued to grow steadily, becoming Whitman County County Seat.

1889: Spokane Falls, Seattle, and Ellensburg all destroyed by disastrous fires. Known as a night of terror devastation, suffering and awful woe, Spokane's response to the Great Fire of 1889, which destroyed 32 blocks of the central portion of the city, was to rebuild immediately, and in a far grander fashion of substantial and elegant red brick, stone and terra cotta.

1890: Pullman, Washington. A stable fire on Grand Street spread to the rest of the town, destroying all the business buildings except the Herald and the hotel within 2 hours. Thereafter, business buildings were required to be constructed of red brick and warehouses covered with corrugated iron.

As a result of these devastating fires, commercial structures were, by revised building codes, to be reconstructed with brick!

Pullman has its own "red brick streets."

I was in the first group of residents to inhabit the new Gannon-Goldsworthy six floor men's resident complex. As shown in this document, my tuition was $60; room and board $720! 

From my sixth floor window at Gannon Hall, I had a wonderful view of the unique those rolling hills. Lynn Suckow gratuitously granted use of her "before" and "after" views of the changing Palouse, shot from Steptoe Butte, just north of Pullman.

I came to appreciate the changing seasons, as beautifully depicted in this Matt Farnsworth video. (Near the end of the video, there is a monument next to the tracks that reads "Cougars" and "Vandals," the respective football teams of Washington State University and Idaho State University in Moscow, Idaho.)

UNIQUE GEOGRAPHY 

What makes this area so distinctive are the miles of rolling hills known as the Palouse. Rod Barbee makes a beautiful attempt to capture the essence of the Palouse. There are many citations for how the area got its name. Most go with its name from the indigenous tribe who lived along the Palouse River.

The Palouse covers an area of 2,142 square miles (5,548 km².) (State of Delaware; 2,050 sq mi, 5,310 km².) Originally used for cattle and sheep ranching over the vast grasslands. Dry land farming of wheat was first proved viable in the Walla Walla region in the 1860s.

The Palouse was blanketed with a mosaic of native vegetation. Bunchgrasses were the dominant feature; shrubs, wildflowers (forbs), and even mosses and lichens also were important. This grand complex, known as the Palouse Prairie, impressed early settlers in the region. One Moscow homesteader in the 1880's wrote "Its beauty was wild and untrammeled and the undulating hills were covered with luxuriant grasses."

 TRANSITION FROM LIVESTOCK TO WHEAT

South of Pullman during the 1870s, the Walla Walla region was rapidly converted to farmland. Initial trials in growing wheat began in the Palouse region, which previously had been the domain of cattle and sheep ranching.

When those trials proved more than successful, a minor land rush quickly filled the Palouse region with farmers during the 1880s.

What contributed to this rush away from cattle and sheep ranching was the soil under the grasslands. The "Palouse Soil" is deep and very rich, composed of dust, including volcanic fallout. This provides excellent support for the production of wheat, barley, pea, lentil and other field crops.

"This "soil" is a fine-grained mass that is intimately dissected into hills and valleys. The little valleys are usually cut to or just below the level of the underlying basalt, so that the height of the hills, from 100 to 150 feet, measures the thickness of this "soil." This material is locally known as "Palouse Soil," from the rich wheat-growing area along Palouse River south of Spokane, which is popularly known as the " Palouse country." [From "The 'Palouse Soil' problem with an account of elephant remains in wind-borne soil on the Columbia plateau of Washington" by Kirk Bryan.]

The rich Palouse Soil is also home to Driloleirus americanus. 

Unlike farming in the flat lands of the Great Plains, these fields are on hills, resulting in harrowing conditions for planting and harvesting!

 Navigating those rolling hills in a combine is not for the faint of heart! Here is a beautifully restored film featuring a multi-horse drawn combine, back in the day. In one scene, the angle of slope must be pretty close to 45°!

These "modern day" harvesters were captured by Dave Honan. Check out his other galleries.

This video demonstrates the hillside leveling technology that facilitates farming this unusual terrain. And, for many teens growing up in the Palouse, this is one way they learned how to drive!

Colfax, (which became the County Seat for Whitman County,) Pullman, Palouse and Moscow Idaho rapidly became hubs for commerce and supplies.

And who better to fill those needs?

Coming next: "A Web of Steel"

Some Assembly Required! - Part Three

Assembly of Seattle's State Route (SR99) Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) reached an important milestone today with the placement of the Cutter Head into the assembly pit.

Newly appointed Washington State Secretary of Transportation, Lynn Peterson officiated this mornings  "topping off" the machine. (Look carefully, you can just make out an American flag attached to the Head.)

More important, officers from from Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP), in charge of actual construction of the tunnel. STP is a joint venture of Dragados USA and Tutor Perini Corporation. Local firms involved with the project include Frank Coluccio Construction and HNTB (nee Howard, Needles, Tammen, Bergendoff) Corporation.

And the "media."

Lifting the 17.45 m (57.5 ft) diameter Head, weighing in at 887 tons, from the Goldhoffer transporter, was a piece of cake for the modular rail mounted crane, with a capacity of  1,000 (short) tons.

The Head assembly was pre-staged at the Assembly Pit Thursday evening, so that the lift and placement could be conducted in daylight today.

Unfortunately, the media has never addressed the issue of just how complicated this tunnel construction is. To learn why divers and a decompression chamber are associated with this project,  click on this link.

As "They" say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So I've processed a series of frames, visualizing this event.

And so the TBM is basically laid out from end to end.  But more assembly still required. There are many more pieces to be added.

It has been a thrill  to witness the assembly of the Worlds Largest Tunnel Boring Machine. Many "thanks" to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) for installing the web cam.

You can follow the on-going assembly by selecting the SR99 Web Cams button in the right margin. There are additional cameras covering action at either portal, as well as time lapse videos.

SEE ALSO

• Some Assembly Required - Part Two
• Some Assembly Required
• First Ashore
• Unloading Bertha Has Begun
• Something Heavy This Way Comes!

Something Strange This Way Comes!

For several weeks I had been following a series of events taking place in South Korea, where a radical departure in vessel design was taking shape. I verified data. I monitored daily progress.

Soon my target vessel disappeared in the Black Hole of the Atlantic, off Saldanha Bay South Africa.

Then I was stricken by the totally frustrating error message:  "Keyboard missing! Press any key to continue."  If the freaking keyboard is missing, how will pressing any key allow me to continue?  It took several days of contentious restarts to reinstall all my programs.

But by then, my target vessel had already made land fall, entering the Inter-Coastal Waterway at Port Aransas Texas, bound for Kiewit Offshore Services in Ingleside Texas.

The evolutionary Dockwise Vanguard was launched last November. Following sea trials, submersion tests and calibration, the latest entry into the heavy lift competition was delivered by Hyundai Heavy Industries in February 2013 to Dockwise of Rotterdam.

The radical design of the Dockwise Vanguard gives her limitless combinations for heavy lift shipments.

The most striking feature of the Dockwise Vanguard is the 12 story high command and accommodations structure, offset from the main deck, allowing unlimited length cargo capacity.

By offsetting the command structure, she has been visualized transporting a number of structures that until this design, would have been impossible to accomplish.

On a more practical vein, Vanguards ability to dry dock unlimited length vessels, will prove invaluable in servicing Floating Production Storage and Offloading  vessels. Eliminating the time and expense involved in "de-coupling" service and supply lines.

Dockwise Vanguard by the Numbers

•  Dockwise Vanguard was erected by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan South Korea.

•  On 15 September 2011, the steel cutting ceremony took place, a symbolic commencement of the beginning of the build.

•  Dockwise Vanguard was constructed by combining 558 sub-modules into 241 blocks. Think Leggo!
•  Type: 396 - Semi-Submersible Heavy Lift Cargo Ship, Double Bottom.
•  Length:   275 meters (902 feet)
•  Beam:  70 meters (230 feet)
•  Draft:  11 meters (36 feet)
•  116,173 dead weight tonnes (128,085 short tons)

•  Propulsion:  The power pack consists of two 6-cylinder in-line Wärtsilä 38 generating sets 4350 kW (5831 hp) output), two 12-cylinder Wärtsilä 38 engines 8700 kW output (11,662 hp) and one 6-cylinder in-line Wärtsilä 20 auxiliary engine 1200 (1,608 hp). Fixed speed electric motors drive controllable pitch propellers (CPP.)

In the bow, two retractable controllable pitch bow thrusters.

In the bow, a 360 degree tunnel thruster for holding precise positioning.

•  Ballast: 223,770 m3 (US 59,113,780 gallons) Water weight 8 pounds per gallon ...
•  IMO Number 618783 (similar to the Vehicle Identification Number on a motor vehicle. Stays with the vessel forever, even when re-named.)
•  MMSI:  244656000. (All vessels operating on the high seas require a nine digit MMSI number to participate in the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. There are four types of MMSI numbers, each intended for a certain purpose. The MMSI number is assigned to the vessel, not the radio.)
•  OCTOPUS Advisory Suite, a comprehensive motion monitoring, forecasting and decision-support system to select the most direct routing based on weather, sea conditions and cargo sensitivity variables.
•  There are two tunnels, providing a safe escape route for the crew in an emergency.

•  A fire wall separates the engine rooms from other areas.
•  USD $240 million investment.

For her maiden voyage  Dockwise Vanguard delivered the Jack//St. Malo deep-water hull from Samsung Heavy Industries yard in Geoje, South Korea, to Kiewit Offshore Services yard at Ingleside Texas.

Recognizing the experience of their employees, Dockwise hand picked the crew for the Vanguard:

The command and control staff, comprised of Captain Oleg Maryasov, who has built his heavy-lift experience with Dockwise as Master of both the Blue Marlin and Black Marlin. He will be joined on the voyage by Sergey Zatsarin , Chief Officer. Bridge staff were sent to a special trainer ((remember, this vessel has an off center bridge.), 

The Engineering staff compromised of Jevgenijs Cernins (Chief Engineer) previously of the Blue Marlin and Mighty Servant 1 and Vladimirs Raiconoks (Second Engineer) previously of the Mighty Servant 1 and Mighty Servant 3, were sent to learn and train with propulsion systems, at Wärtsilä in Italy.

“Our new vessel has the potential to create a new market of its own. The name ‘Dockwise Vanguard’ refers to the forefront of a movement or, in our case, an innovation in the Heavy Marine Transport Industry." André Goedée, CEO Dockwise.

The semi submersible hull for Chevron's Jack/St. Malo deep water Gulf of Mexico project is a four column semi-submersible hull. It measures 344 feet by 344 feet (105 meters x 105 meters); with columns that are 80 feet (24 meters) by 890 feet (271 meters) and stands 229 feet (76 meters) tall. The topside is comprised of three "stage 1" modules (production, compression and power generation) sitting on the deckbox.

At 61,730 tons (56,000 metric tons), the hull is the world's largest to date. But even that weight is hardly a stretch for the Dockwise Vanguard, whose designed capacity is 110,000 tons! Total topsides dry weight is 19,756 short tons, with space provided for additional modules to support future development.

The centerpiece for Kiewit Offshore Services at Ingleside Texas, is the world's largest Heavy Lifting Device (HLD.) The 550-foot tall HLD is located on the La Quinta shipping channel and can be seen on the horizon from anywhere on the shore of Corpus Christi Bay.

While at Kiewit's Ingleside facility, the top most production and housing structures, cranes, helicopter decks and other operating structures will be stacked onto the hull. The HLD  utilizes 23 miles of 2.5-inch cable and is rated to handle 13,000-ton loads. The Jack and St. Malo field are located in the Gulf of Mexico within 25 miles of each other in the Walker Ridge area, about 280 miles south of New Orleans.

The Jack / St. Malo floating production unit will be installed in 7,000 ft (2,100 m) water depths. By comparison, the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon was drilling in 5,000 ft (1,500 meters.)

This animation clearly demonstrates the advantages of this radical vessel design.

Following delivery of the Jack / St. Malo platform to Ingleside, the Dockwise Vanguard left the Gulf of Mexico on May 10, returning to South Korea.  There she will load the FPSO Goliat (floating, production, storage and offloading vessel ), delivering the unit to Norway..