The Best Lead Times: Padmounts for Charleston Port Project
Bill needed transformers delivered fast for the new Charleston Port Project. But every company he contacted had padmount lead times over a year long.
November 25, 2025
Case Studies
Big projects can stall completely if you can’t get the transformers you need in time.
That was Bill’s problem.
Bill was the project manager supplying electrical equipment for the new Charleston Navy Base Intermodal Facility. This new 118-acre facility was designed to improve the flow of imports and exports at the Charleston harbor. Using over 35,000’ of track, mobile overhead cranes would move shipping containers between trains and trucks. This would speed up moving shipping containers between the Port of Charleston, the Inland Ports Greer and Dillion, and destinations across the Southeast.
Before this project, the Port of Charleston could transport just 300,000 containers by train each year—only a quarter of its total throughput, according to Palmetto Railways. This project would nearly triple that number, putting more containers on trains and fewer on tractor-trailers. Freeing up the highways around the harbors of semi trucks.
The site included arrival and departure tracks, gantry cranes, and administrative buildings. All of which required significant amounts of electrical power.
So what was the problem? With cranes constantly lifting and shifting shipping containers, any transformer with overhead cabling wasn't an option. Bill needed padmount transformers connected by underground cabling.
But no one could get them to him soon enough. Every vendor Bill talked to couldn’t deliver within a year. “Everybody else was way out over a year, or a year and three months, or a year and five months,” he recalled.
But then, Bill called Maddox. Immediately, things improved.
“I was actually very impressed how fast they were able to get the initial drawings out for approval because the schedule was very tight. Once the drawings returned, they started manufacturing.” Bill recalls.
Within ten months, Bill had five brand-new US-built padmount transformers. The project could now move forward.
Bill went on: “I was extremely impressed, and I would highly recommend them for anybody that was looking for transformers. They have the capability to do what they said they were going to do, and do it on time.”
If you’ve got a project that can’t wait, fill out the form below.
We’ll get you the right transformer–on time, every time.
