Irish Bog Swallows up Shell Convoy

On Monday:

http://www.wsm.ie/c/garda-deployed-protect-shells-machine-people-ireland

Not half an hour ago:

Couldn't make it up

"There's a feckin, gawd, so there is. Amma tellin' ya! Paddy, hide that crane before the law gets here. Stick it in the barn with the hosses."

The company responsible are called Rensink

I don't understand why they're protesting. This is a machine designed to drill a tunnel under a SAC. Surely that's much better environmentally than the usual cut & cover? Or is the issue with the whole oil & gas industry - and presumably rampant corruption?

I can't blame the driver ,he refused to go back in the cab

An hour ago:

Ten minutes ago:

fucking ace!
nature fighting back

Odds on it not getting out again?

They won't get it out again

the protest is against the entire pipeline IIRC, not the use of a tunnel instead of cut and cover.

certainly sounds unlikely at this stage, must have cost a fair amount of dosh too that borer

Emergency road widening works are under discussion.

Yup, there is a film about it all called The Pipe. All is explained.

http://www.thepipethefilm.com/

It's made it into the national papers:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0731/breaking14.html?via=mr

Right lads, for a start don't know who said you can't get a crane large enough to lift out that 160 tonne load, including unit and trailer, here's Kavanagh's Demag http://www.irishcranehire.com/2009/crane_item.php?crane=7 And that's 400 tonne lifting capacity, that'd be landed tomorrow morning no bother.

Crane spam?

€10 says that fucker will sink.

I wonder how much stuff they will sink into the bog before giving it up as a bad job?

it reminds me of the festival where the site crew ended up with 2 telehandlers stuck in the mud up to the axels.

oh how we laughed, until we worked out we'd have to steward the damn things until they got them out.

eta - and the time we basically ended up with a temporary trackway floating on top of a bog, so anyone who stopped for longer than a few minutes ended up with the trackway below the wheels just sunk into the bog, but still on the trackway. The marquee company loved that.

Pffft... call that a crane?
They'll have to plate the roadway to work on the beast and once they've got it out then what? They'll have to plate all the way to site.

160 tonnes+suction, nah.

At Glasto one year I swerved a telehandler into a boggy ditch and a mate tried to pull me out with his, and I just ended up pulling him in with me, it took a third plus a tractor to get us out

lol - that could even be the occasion I was thinking of, although I reckon it was the glade flood year that I had in mind, and IIRC they were in the middle of one of the stages when they sunk as well.

Well according to several sources on twitter they're getting a crane in from the UK. It's too pull out the TBM, several trucks and fuck knows what else. I can't see how that tonka truck posted above is going to be of much use.

That'll go down well.

Fuck all about this on the BBC.

I think it is great, quite poetic.

Nah this was luckily on a service road round the back well out of sight of the punters thankgod.

So let me get this straight. Heavy truck sinks into bog so they're getting a heavier crane to get the heavy truck out. It's a fucking recipe for disaster. What will they get to get the crane out?