This special trench box was built in our shop and used on one project, a 72” and 84” water line line for a new water plant project in Austin, Texas.

I have serious reasons to believe it is the largest trench box ever built. It measured 44’ long x 12’ tall with an 8’ tall stacker section to go on top, making it 20’ tall.

This box isn’t for just anyone. We had two EX 1200 Hitachi Excavators that were used to dig and lay the pipe and took them both to advance the box ahead. The approximate weight of the 12’ bottom box was 55,000 lbs. The whole box would have weighed close to 90,000 lbs.

The Black Peterbilt and Lowboy was used to move those machines around. 2 different trailers, depending on where they were going. (Texas or Oklahoma, for example)

You may ask why did it need to be so long? The pipe had been pre-ordered in 40’ lengths by the General Contractor and that job had more safety inspectors on it than actual workers. Or at least it seemed that way. So that was a requirement of the project and we took on the task.