Greg In The Desert

The local electric utility in Rio Rancho, NM is scheduled to move a gigantic electrical transformer through the city.

The transformer will be hauled by a massive, specialized truck that has 174 wheels on 24 axles and is the length of a football field, or about 300 feet. It is expected to take 8 to 10 hours for the truck to move the transformer about 12 miles from railroad tracks in Bernalillo, through Bernalillo and Rio Rancho, to the switching station currently under construction northwest of Rio Rancho.

It’s supposed to travel from the railroad in Bernallio, up 550 to 528, then from 528 to Northern Avenue to where the pavement ends. This isn’t far from my house.

It was originally schedule for Sunday however PNM doesn’t have all the road permits so it will sit on the truck until it’s moved. Hopefully I can find out when it’s been rescheduled to move so I can get some video of the event.

Update: from PNM

All permits have been secured. The transformer will be moved through Bernalillo and Rio Rancho beginning shortly after midnight on Tuesday, Dec. 22. The move is expected to take 2-3 hours, given the minimal traffic at that time.

I was up for the move but it was too dark to record video with the gear I have.

Update 2: The Associated Press had a few articles on this event. Every single news paper in the country had the same article as the local news and TV stations. I did find a little original reporting.

• KOB has very little video which doesn’t do much to show how big this thing is.
• KOAT has a slide show which does very little to show how big this thing is.

New Mexico is in the news with video of a University of New Mexico woman’s soccer player beating the shit out of BYU players. The video of Elizabeth Lambert has been making it’s way across the web and although KOB says all of the video of Elizabeth Lambert has been removed from YouTube, I found a video from the Associated Press which shows some of the incidents.

The Lobo’s website has a profile page up for Elizabeth Lambert which states:

Born Elizabeth Ann Lambert on December 29, 1988 … enjoys camping and surfing in her spare time … favorite food is tacos … is majoring in University Studies with a focus on Occupational Therapy

There’s a Occupational Therapy joke in there somewhere. What the profile fails to mention is that she was indefinitely suspended from UNM soccer. Although her official statement was that she was sorry (I hope so), I really wonder what her deal is. I hope she tells more about why she was so rough.

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link to AP story.