Stopped superload draws early Monday
morning attention in Chester

By Shawn Cunningham
Photos by Linda Diak
© 2020 Telegraph Publishing LLC

A 147-footlong “superload” that spent an hour on Main Street just west of the Green in Chester Monday morning had residents and passersby scratching their heads. The 62,500-gallon stainless steel milk tank bound for Ehrmann Commonwealth Dairy in Brattleboro  — from Winchester, Ontario, Canada via New York state arrived in town around 7 a.m. And then it stopped.

What was the problem, people wondered, as a host of wide load escort cars, law enforcement cruisers with their blue lights flashing and other vehicles lined up ahead of and behind the massive rig that was even equipped with steering at both the front and back to negotiate the turns along the way. In fact, it was the truck’s curfew.

Lt. Joel Howard, of the Bennington County Sheriff’s Department, who was traveling with the rig as a blue light escort, told The Telegraph that “they stopped because there was a travel restriction” on wide loads between 7  and 8 a.m.

According to Derek Fenby, chief of Commercial Operations for Vermont DMV, oversize loads are prohibited from traveling during peak traffic hours including that early morning hour, as well as at noon and  in the late afternoon. Fenby also said that Transportation National – the trucking company – was given special permission to start its drive at 5 a.m. so the truck could clear Chester before 7 a.m. But that was not to be.

“Our guys met the police at 5, had a quick inspection and started out at 5:15 a.m.,” said Steve Kays of  Transportation National. But hauling the 45,000-pound tank up and down the hills of Vermont meant that the truck could only average about 25 mph, arriving in Chester just as the curfew went into effect.

“It was one of the slowest I’ve ever been on,” said Howard who noted that they found a safe space and waited out the hour.

The movement of very large loads is often slow, circuitous and governed by permits for each jurisdiction along the way. And such large rigs are banned from many highways like the New York State Thruway and the Massachusetts Turnpike. In this case, Kays explained, the tank was routed through Thousand Islands, N.Y., to Binghamton on the way to Vermont and the trip approached 1,000 miles.

The seven-axle rig weighing 135,000 pounds entered Vermont Rt. 279 near Bennington, drove north on Rt. 7 and east on 11 through Londonderry and Andover before arriving in Chester. After the stop, the rest of the trip – along Rt. 103 south to Interstate 91 to Exit 1 and finally along Rt. 5 south to the dairy – was uneventful.

Sam Garland of Ehrmann Commonwealth Dairy in Brattleboro said the tank arrived without problems and he expected to have the tank installed by the end of the year. Click any photo to launch gallery.