Anybody know what these are?

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I came across these sitting on a siding in the Leesville railyard.

 

[kjd]

I'll give you a hint, they end up like this:

Notice our Subaru Forester for scale:

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Thank you. I had always seen them already set up and in use. This is the first time I'd seen any in pieces.

 

[hamltnblue]

I see the propeller blades and sections of poles on trucks in delaware from time to time. I haven't seen the motor housings though.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

The only parts I've seen separate from the turbine structure is the blades. I saw several tractor trailers hauling them when I was driving through Kansas from Colorado to Louisiana.

 

[RCH]

great catch, Jeffrey. There's a place north of Dallas/Fort Worth where the blades are transported to and from. I don't know what they do at this place, but at any given time there are dozens of the blades laying on the ground waiting to be loaded on trucks.

 

[Rico]

Nice shots Jeffery, I like how you added the road numbers to the photos, never thought of doing that.
I've never run across the heads on flats before, but here are the main shafts traveling thru Northern Ont.

 

[UP2CSX]

Those are some honking big windmills. There are hundreds of these things in the Altamont Pass in northern California, most of which were sold to groups like doctors for tax writeoffs. Many of them were shutdown when I last went through the area in 2005 because they couldn't compete with the price of electricity produced by other methods. Maybe the runup in oil prices has made wind power competitive again.

 

[Trussrod]

And here I thought they were SUPER Sized Marker Lights for the New Cabooses ! !

 

[kenw]

The blades that came thru Houston back in '05 were long enough that 2@blades needed 3@86' flats. that means that each blade was about 120' long, so the completed windmill blades had a diameter of 240'. or thereabouts.

Big honkers....

 

[DirtyD79]

Like others have said they're part of those giant windfarm fans/turbines. The first time I ever saw pieces of them in transport though was last summer. Although the giant blades were on a flatbed semi trailer not a railroad car. We have them here in PA too somewhere along the turnpike.

 

[ray46]

I'm not really so sure about the explanation. The first flat is obviously carrying the small shuttle craft used on the Jupiter mission ship, Discovery, from the movie, 2001, A Space Odyssey.