The LiuGong TC250-4 crane is loaded onto a ship in Shanghai bound for Antarctica for loading and unloading cargo, truck hoisting and house repair work at a Chinese research facility.
LiuGong shipped a TC250-4 crane to the South Pole by ship from Shanghai earlier this month to assist in the operations of a Chinese research facility. The unit is the second LiuGong crane to be sent to the South Pole and is expected to land at Zhongshan station in Antarctica after two months, where the first LiuGong TC250-4 has been in operation for about one year.
The crane will be responsible for loading and unloading cargo, truck hoisting and house repair work at the Chinese research station. This second crane was ordered after the first TC250-4 proved that the equipment could work stably and reliably in the extreme, sub-zero Antarctic environment.
The commissioning of the cranes is a direct result of a strategic cooperation agreement between LiuGong and the Polar research center of China that was signed in 2012. Since that time, LiuGong has sent several machines to the South Pole, including a CLG920D excavator, a CLG856 wheel loader and the cranes.
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.
