Huge wind turbine blades take the train on 2,000km journey across the US

Vestas has this week announced an unusual industry milestone, after the first batch of its brand new V163-4.5MW wind turbine blades were transported across the US via railway.

“Measuring 80.5 meters (or 264 feet), these are the longest wind turbine blades transported across major rail service networks in the US!” Vestas said in a LinkedIn post on Monday.

“Thank you to our incredible railway partners at OmniTrax, BNSF Railway, and Union Pacific Railroad for their collaboration and safe transport!”

In a comment on the post, OmniTrax noted that the “record setting shipment” started out in Windsor, Colorado, and wound up at the Port of Brownsville in Texas – a journey of just over 2,000km according to Google Maps.

As some commenters point out, this is not the cleanest form of transport around, considering the train is likely diesel powered. But it does promise to be more efficient, less polluting and less logistically challenging than traditional forms of road transport.

And the pictures are great!