Giant Electromagnet to Stop in Bolingbrook Next Week on Journey to Fermilab

A particle storage ring spanning 50 feet in diameter will stop in Bolingbrook this weekend as it nears the end of a 3,200-mile journey from New York to Illinois.

The giant electromagnet is headed to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, just outside Batavia, where it will be used in an experiment called Muon g-2, and will study the properties of muons, tiny subatomic particles that exist for only 2.2 millionths of a second. The ring, made of steel and aluminum, is part of a machine built at New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory in the 1990s.

Because the 17-ton electromagnet cannot be taken apart, or tilted or twisted more than a few degrees without being irreparably damaged, the trip to Fermilab has been tricky. The ring has spent the last few weeks on a barge, heading down the East Coast, around the tip of Florida and up the Mississippi River to Illinois.

The ring is expected to arrive at noon Saturday at the Ozinga port in Lemont, located near the Lemont Road bridge. From there, the ring will be loaded on to the back of another truck and driven to Fermilab.

The ring is one of the widest loads ever to be transported across roads in Illinois, so the proposed route takes it across the widest roads available, including I-355 and I-88. Because the truck will move at about 5 mph and will require portions of roads to be closed, the move from the port to Fermilab is scheduled to take place on three consecutive nights (July 23-25) with escort from police and other officials.

Around 11 p.m. Tuesday, the ring will start traveling north on Lemont Road to 87th Street, then west to Costco in Bolingbrook, where it is scheduled to arrive around 5 a.m. Wednesday.

On Wednesday night, the ring will travel west on 87th Street to I-355, north on I-355 to Route 56, west on Route 56 to 53 and south on Route 53 to the Hidden Lake Forest Preserve in Glen Ellyn.

On Thursday, July 25, the ring will stay at the forest preserve until 11 p.m., and then will travel south on Route 53 to I-88, west on I-88 to Route 59, north on Route 59 to Ferry Road, west on Ferry Road to Eola Road, north on Eola Road to the Fermilab site.

No disruption of commuter traffic is expected, officials said.
The electromagnet is then expected to arrive on the Fermilab site early Friday morning, July 26.

“It’s been a very long journey, and it took a lot of work from dozens of people,” said Chris Polly, the project’s manager at Fermilab, in a press release. “Now that it’s almost here, the excitement is building. We’re eager to get the magnet here and start the experiment.”

Fermilab spokesperson Andre Salles said the Lemont port was chosen because of its proximity to Lemont Road, which is the northern route they want to use to access I-355.

"We looked at four ports in the area, and while the others were suitable for moving the device off of the barge and onto the truck, the Ozinga port presented us with the clearest path to Lemont Road, with the least amount of tree trimming or sign removal," Salles said in May.
On the afternoon of July 26, the ring will move the last few miles across the Fermilab site. The public is invited to celebrate the ring's arrival at 5:30 p.m. at Wilson Hall, where there will be hands-on activities and the opportunity to pose for a massive group photo.

“A 50-foot-wide electromagnet rolling down a road is really something to see,” said David Hertzog of the University of Washington, co-spokesman for the Muon g-2 experiment. “As excited as we are about the new physics this experiment may uncover, we’re equally thrilled to see the magnet making its last few steps home.”

Details of the Fermilab celebration are posted on http://muon-g-2.fnal.gov/bigmove, along with a GPS-powered map that shows the location of the magnet on its journey. Updates will be posted to the site, both before and during the move along Illinois roadways, according to Fermi officials.