By Kevin Henry with Atomic Aerials

Good-bye gantry cranes! This month West Seattle will say farewell to the towering red ship-to-shore container cranes that have accented the neighborhood’s skyline for more than three decades. Initially installed in the 1980s during the Port of Seattle’s ambitious development of Terminal 5 – itself a response to rapid growth in the neighboring Port of Tacoma – the six cranes will soon vanish. The three shorter cranes will be hauled to Vancouver, Canada and cut apart for scrap, but the larger trio will journey south to the Port of Tacoma, where they will continue to move move containers at Matson's recently consolidated PNW terminal.

Moving the fully assembled cranes in one piece is no easy feat. Jacks will lift the cranes off the rails on the pier, and a vehicle known as a Self-Propelled Modular Transporter is positioned underneath. The SPMT is composed of dozens of electrically driven wheels and hydraulic jacks, which synchronize to keep the entire assembly level.

The remotely operated SPMT will then roll onto a barge secured to the pier and handled by the Western Towboat Co. Timing of the move must be precise as barge rises and falls relative to the pier with the changing tides. Once aboard the barge, the Western Towboat tugs will spend half a day making the trek down into the South Sound, where the entire process is played out in reverse order to move the cranes ashore.

Meanwhile, a third of the way around the globe in Shanghai, six new mammoth cranes for Terminal 5 are undergoing final construction. Called Super Post-Panamax cranes, they are designed to accommodate taller and wider container ships. At 316’ tall, they will dwarf the neighboring cranes at Terminal 18, their arms extending a whopping 240’ for those hard-to-reach containers on modern mega-ships.

The new cranes are scheduled to arrive some time next spring. They will be delivered to Seattle aboard a ship specially modified to balance tall loads, often a former oil tanker whose deep hull can be filled with water for ballast to steady the vessel. The cranes will, in fact, be welded to the deck of the ship to keep them secure across the Pacific. The journey will take about three weeks. Powerful winches will pull the cranes off the ship and onto the pier’s new rails. Once unloaded, the cranes will undergo about six months of commissioning; testing all systems and equipment to make sure they are ready to handle the largest vessels the Pacific Northwest has seen.

The crane change is just one part of the Port of Seattle’s $300 million investment in improving and modernizing the terminal. In addition to new cranes, the channel has been deepened and the entire pier replaced. Lastly, as a massive step in affecting environmental impact, the terminal’s energy system has received a comprehensive upgrade to power the onboard electrical equipment of ultra-sized ships, which often have to run their generators even when docked to power the ship and the refrigerated containers they carry. Years of careful planning and innovation have gone into the terminal’s improvement. Engineering and construction of the changes is expected to bring more than 2,500 temporary jobs to the multi-year project, with an estimated 6,000 permanent jobs generated from the upgrade.

These older cranes have been an iconic part of West Seattle and the city as a whole. More than visual landmarks, they are symbols of the economic and industrial significance of the area. While I am excited for the arrival of the new cranes next year and the promise of colossal new ships to watch in 2022, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness as the sun sets on these worn, orange giants. If I ever feel nostalgic I can always pay them a visit in Tacoma. Gritty is pretty!