Modular data center transport

Why builders are shipping the building

More of a data center is built in a factory every year. An electrical room arrives as a finished steel module with its switchgear, UPS and distribution already installed and tested. A mechanical skid arrives with its pumps, piping and controls. A whole data hall can arrive as a stack of modules that bolt together on a slab. The reason is schedule: factory work runs in parallel with the site work, and a module that was tested at the plant commissions in days instead of weeks.

The cost of that approach is paid on the road. A module is the size of the room it replaces, so it is nearly always over width, often over height, sometimes over length, and heavy. Moving one is an oversize permitted move with escorts, a surveyed route and a crane at each end.

Three ways a module moves

Most modules ride on an RGN lowboy or a double drop trailer, which puts the deck low enough to keep a twelve foot tall module under the height limit, and on enough axles to spread the weight. Modules built to shipping container dimensions, including containerized compute and cooling units, ride on flatbeds or container chassis within legal limits, which makes them the easiest modules to move. And some manufacturers build the module on its own trailer or dolly system, in which case we supply the tractor and the driver as a power only move and the module rides on the equipment it was designed for.

All three go through partner carriers vetted through Highway before dispatch, except the power only moves, which our own tractors can handle when they are available, as they do on a regular basis for shippers that keep their own trailer pool on the power only trucking page.

Permits, escorts and route surveys

A module over eight and a half feet wide needs an oversize permit from every state it crosses, and above about twelve feet wide most western states require two pilot cars and daylight travel. Over height loads need a route checked for every bridge, sign structure and power line on the way, and the widest loads need a route survey with the utility companies lifting lines where necessary. That takes time: a week or two for a large module is normal, and we plan the shipping date around it rather than the other way around.

The permit rules differ by state. California limits travel times in the Los Angeles basin and restricts the widest loads to specific routes. Arizona and Nevada are more open on the desert interstates but each has its own port of entry. Oregon and Washington close the mountain passes to oversize loads in snow. We arrange the permits and the escorts through the carrier for each state, and the oversize permits and escorts page explains the thresholds.

Setting the module

The module arrives on the day the crane is booked and is lifted straight from the trailer to the slab or the pier foundations. That is the plan, and the site has to support it: an access road wide enough for a lowboy with escorts, a turning area, a crane pad within reach of the foundation, and a laydown space in case the slab is not ready. We confirm those with the contractor before dispatch, because a module that cannot get through the gate is an expensive thing to have sitting on a public road.

For multi module halls we sequence the deliveries in the order the modules bolt together, one or two a day, so the crane crew works without idle days and no module waits in the yard.

What we need to quote

• Module length, width, height and weight, and whether it ships on its own trailer
• Lifting points, spreader bar requirements and the rigging plan the manufacturer provides
• Pickup at the factory, with its crane, yard and hours
• Site access road, gate width, turning room, crane pad and foundation location
• The set date, and the order of modules for a multi module delivery