Yes, I concede that these high, wide, & long loads can make turns. But the placement of the wheels at the center of the load means that a 150' load has a 75' "tail" from the pivot point to the rear. On a 2- or 3-lane road, that long tail can't swing freely if the road is lined with telephone poles, street signs, traffic signs, fire hydrants, mailboxes, etc. West Point's math is probably about right. Ten minutes sounds like a nice, practical minimum for a movement of this kind. I have no idea what the maximum would be. I doubt that there is a railroad crossing in this country where the train normally trips the circuit ten full minutes before it reaches the crossing. Therefore I repeat, the call must be made before any attempt is made to pass into the grade crossing limits.
If there is no legal requirement that a call must be made in advance, then the legitimacy of the whole permitting process is in question. How can any State official certify that such a move can be made safely without a requirement that the railroad be notified in advance?
I suspect the manufacturers of these oversized loads must have an awful lot of political clout in their States. However, this movement must have been permitted for NC, VA, MD, PA, and NJ. Surely somebody in at least one of these States must have looked at the permit application with some misgivings.
