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The first of two massive steam generators bound for the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island was hauled ashore Tuesday at Tome's Landing Marina in this quaint, Susquehanna River town.
The second one is scheduled to arrive at the marina today.
On Sunday, they both will begin the long, slow, 70-mile journey over land through Cecil County, Md., and the entire length of Lancaster County to the Exelon Nuclear plant in southern Dauphin County.
INTERACTIVE MAP: Route of giant TMI generators
VIDEO: Massive steam generator arrives in Md.
"This is the beginning," AREVA Inc. spokeswoman Denise Woernle said Tuesday, while standing on a dock and looking at the generator floating on a transport barge in the Susquehanna.
AREVA is the France-based company that built the two 74-foot-long generators for Exelon.
The generators are large cylinders full of pipes, which serve as heat exchangers. Super-heated water created inside the pressurized-water reactor at TMI enters one side of the unit and the heat is transferred to adjacent pipes, turning water into steam to turn the turbine that produces electricity.
The 510-ton behemoths were sent across the Atlantic Ocean in cargo ships last month, transferred to barges in Delaware and then pushed up the Chesapeake Bay by tugboats.
Because Tome's Landing Marina can handle only one of the giant barges at a time, one was moored south of Havre de Grace, Md., in deeper Chesapeake waters while the other was pushed through the mouth of the Susquehanna River to Tome's at high tide Tuesday morning by the tugboat Virginia.
Tugboats are expected to push the second generator to Tome's today.
"In our 10-year history of owning this facility, this is something that's quite out of the ordinary," said Peach Bottom native David Read, a 1971 graduate of Solanco High School. He owns the marina along with fellow Lancaster County native Jack Conrad, a 1954 graduate of Warwick High School.
A modest crowd of people gathered at Tome's marina Tuesday to see the first generator up close.
Among the crowd were Lancastrians Ken Horst and Dale Martin, who work for Brickerville Electric.
The two men were investigating a potential construction job in the Port Deposit area when they noticed all the activity in town.
"Somebody said the generators were coming in down here so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to come see," Horst said. "I've never seen anything like it."
To prepare the way for the arrival of the generators after a busy Labor Day weekend on the river, Read and his employees worked Monday evening to move boats, a floating dock and several wooden pylons away from one end of the marina's concrete pier.
That work allowed the first barge to float to within about six feet of dry land.
Crews busied themselves Tuesday morning fashioning a short bridge that allowed the generator, which was fastened to its 26-axle, 315-ton transport trailer on the barge, to be driven onto land.
Since Tome's marina isn't normally equipped to handle such a vessel, a barge with a large crane mounted on it arrived from Weeks Marine, based in the Port of New York/New Jersey, several days earlier.
That barge served as a makeshift dock for the craft carrying the generator, and the crane came in handy for moving around large equipment needed to get the generator ashore, Woernle said.
Weeks Marine is one of the largest stevedore companies on the East Coast.
Read said he was told the crew operating the crane barge at Tome's Tuesday was the same team that hauled the U.S. Airways Airbus out of the Hudson River early this year, after the plane was intentionally landed there by pilot Capt. Chesley Sullenberger.
All 155 crew and passengers survived the water landing.
On Sunday morning, the generators will begin moving toward TMI at 3 mph as part of a mile-long convoy.
Because the generators and transports weigh so much and are about 25 feet tall, temporary stream crossings have been built, some utility lines have been moved — more will be moved as the convoy progresses — and steel structures called "overbridges," which disperse the weight of the generators over a wide area, have been or will be put in place on bridges all along the planned route.
Massive traffic delays are anticipated as the convoy creeps north through Little Britain, Willow Street, Columbia and Bainbridge.
Following are highlights of the convoy's tentative schedule over the next three weeks:
• Sept. 15, enters Lancaster County on Route 272 in Little Britain Township.
• Sept. 18, turns west onto Route 741 from Route 272 in Willow Street.
• Sept. 25, travels through Columbia Borough.
• Sept. 26, overnight move across Route 30 at Columbia.
• Sept. 30, arrives at TMI via Route 441.
E-mail: preilly@lnpnews.com
