The short answer
Relocating a fixed crusher plant is three jobs: dismantling it into trailer loads, moving those loads across state lines, some of them over-dimensional, and erecting and commissioning at the far end. The road leg is usually the shortest part. From the last tonne at the old site to steady production at the new one, allow about a month where access is reasonable: two weeks to move, two to erect and commission.
A crusher plant earns nothing between packages. The faster it gets from the yard it has finished in to the yard it is needed in, the more of its life it spends making stone. Most of what slows a move is decided before the first bolt is undone.
01What comes apart
A three-stage plant breaks down into the crushers themselves, the vibrating feeder and hopper, three or four screen boxes, a dozen or more conveyors, the supporting steel, the control cabin and electrical panels, and the weighbridge. Conveyors and structure go on ordinary flatbeds. The jaw crusher, the cone and the larger screens are the heavy or awkward pieces and travel on low-bed trailers.
Good dismantling is half of good erection. Match-mark every joint, bag and label the fasteners, photograph the wiring before disconnecting it, and load in the reverse of the order things will be needed. A plant stripped in a hurry arrives as a puzzle.
02Over-dimensional loads
The Central Motor Vehicles Rules cap a goods vehicle and its load at 2.6 m wide. Height is 4.0 m in general and up to 4.75 m for construction equipment and indivisible loads. Length is 12 m for a rigid truck and 18.75 m for a truck and trailer. A screen box or a crusher frame that exceeds any of these on its trailer is over-dimensional cargo and needs permission before it moves.
For national highways that permission is applied for on the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways' online portal for over-dimensional and over-weight cargo. State roads along the route need their own clearance. Allow for it in the programme, and decide early whether a wide piece is better carried whole under a permit or split into legal loads and reassembled.
03The route
- Bridges and culverts with a posted weight limit below the loaded trailer.
- Overhead lines and underpasses lower than the load.
- Villages where the road narrows to less than the trailer's swept path.
- Hill sections with hairpins a long trailer cannot take.
- State border check posts, and the documents each one asks for.
- The last kilometre into the new site, which is nearly always the worst.
Somebody should drive the route before the trailers are booked. A bridge discovered with a 60 tonne load already on the approach is a week lost.
04The far end starts first
Foundations at the new site should be cast and gaining strength while the plant is still being dismantled at the old one. If the trailers arrive to bare ground, the plant waits on concrete. The same goes for the approach road, the level standing, the power arrangement and the consents: everything in setting up a stone crusher plant has to be ready before the steel is.
05A timeline
| Stage | What happens | Allow |
|---|---|---|
| Before the move | Route check, permits, foundations cast at the new site | Runs alongside the last weeks of production |
| Dismantle and move | Strip, load, travel, unload, plus machines and crew | About two weeks |
| Erect | Structure, crushers, screens, conveyors, cabling | Most of two weeks |
| Commission | Dry run, feed, grading trials, weighbridge stamping | The last few days of those two weeks |
Hill terrain, a monsoon start or a weak approach road adds to every row.
06What gets forgotten
- The weighbridge has to be re-verified by Legal Metrology after it is moved. Until it is stamped, its slips are not valid for trade.
- Consent to Operate belongs to a location. The new site needs its own.
- Wear parts. Moving is the cheapest moment to fit new liners and screen mesh, with everything already open.
- The crew. People move with the plant or they are replaced by people who have never run it.
- The old site. Foundations, scrap and stockpile bottoms have to be cleared before the land is handed back.