A "mammoth" abnormal load forced the M53 to shut from 7pm yesterday until 10am today.
The busy motorway was closed from junction five at Hooton to junction 10 at Cheshire Oaks to allow the huge delivery of a new furnace to Essar's Stanlow refinery. The northbound carriageway was also shut between junction 10 and junction eight.
The load measures 26.5 metres in length, is 18.5 metres tall and 14.2 metres wide which is twice the length of a road-going oil tanker and almost five times the height of a double-decker bus.
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The diversion was in place using the A550 and A494 trunks between junction 5 and junction 11 at Stoak Interchange where the M53 meets the M56.
Gordon Beattie, abnormal loads manager for the North West said: "There are abnormal loads and there are abnormal loads, and this one will completely fill the motorway. The module will be mounted on two-wheeled platforms, one on each carriageway, and will look a bit like the bridge of a container ship gliding down the motorway.
"This has been a huge logistical challenge for everyone involved but we’ll be closing the motorway at a time when traffic is at its lightest and a very good diversion will be in place."
After arriving by ship from Thailand to the Port of Liverpool in June it was transferred to a barge for the short trip across the River Mersey, through the locks into the Manchester Ship Canal and onto a holding bay near National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port. The last leg of its 6,000 mile, and mostly watery, journey has been along the M53 motorway and A5117 local road.
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