Inside a Boston plant there is usually no room for a crane — a roof overhead, live equipment either side, and a floor that has to carry the load the whole way. That is where heavy lift rigging takes over: hydraulic gantries, jacks and cribbing, and skid tracks that move the heaviest pieces in the building without a hook.
Quick answer: Badass Logistics provides heavy lift rigging in Boston, MA and the surrounding metro. We lift, jack, skid, and set heavy equipment with hydraulic gantries, jacking and cribbing, and skid systems — the methods for loads a crane can't reach, can't set up beside, or isn't allowed inside. Our crews work across Boston and nearby Massachusetts metros, and moves between facilities run as project freight under the same plan — usually quoted the same day. Call (307) 284-1332.
A crane needs open sky, outrigger space, and ground that can take the bearing. Most heavy equipment in Boston sits where none of that exists — under a bay roof, in a pit, behind a column line, or in a building the load has to roll into. In Boston's manufacturing & port plants, the way a heavy piece moves is usually up a few inches, along a planned path, and down onto its set point.
Badass Logistics plans those lifts from the load data out: weight and center of gravity, the lift points the builder allows, floor capacity along the route, and the headroom at every stage. We set hydraulic gantries where the piece has to go up, jack and crib it where it has to come off a truck or a foundation, and skid or roll it where it has to travel. When there is room for a crane, the crane lift and the inside move go into one plan. Jacking and skidding, explained →
The buildings decide the method in Boston. The stock here is a mix of dense multi-storey brick mill buildings in Chelsea and Everett with narrow loading bays and older waterfront warehouses with low dock clearances, which is why so many heavy pieces move under a gantry or on skid track rather than on a hook. The heaviest loads in the metro are bioreactors and cleanroom process skids, refrigeration and cold-storage equipment, printing presses, and seafood processing lines — each one planned from its weight, lift points, and the floor under it.
Boston, MA runs on manufacturing & port, and almost none of it stays put. Same crews and the same heavy lift rigging standards across the region:
The loads that need these methods are the heaviest and most awkward in the building. Typical Boston heavy lifts include:
That equipment serves Boston's biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturing, seafood processing and cold storage, wholesale produce distribution, and commercial printing and publishing, where a lift usually happens beside machinery that keeps running. Most of our jacking and gantry work here lands in the Chelsea and Everett industrial district south of Route 16, anchored by the New England Produce Center, the Grand Junction Railroad corridor linking Allston, Cambridge, Charlestown, Everett and Chelsea, and the Conley Terminal container-port district in South Boston.
Loads lifted and traversed under roofs and inside bays where a crane cannot set up across the Boston metro.
Heavy pieces raised off trailers, foundations, and pits in controlled stages across the Boston metro.
Loads moved along engineered skid tracks or on rollers to the set point across the Boston metro.
Equipment lowered onto anchors, soleplates, and foundations to the layout across the Boston metro.
Plenty of Boston jobs start and finish on one floor. The rest have to travel — to a new building across the metro, a sister plant down I-90, I-95 and I-93, or a facility in another state. We don't hand that part off. It runs as project freight inside the same plan: machines crated or prepped on site, loads sequenced to the rig-out, transport through our licensed broker and carrier partners with dedicated capacity for bigger moves, and our crew waiting at the destination to set it.
The heaviest pieces bound for Boston often arrive by rail or water before they ever reach a road. Served by CSX, with the Grand Junction line providing the primary active freight connection into the Boston-area industrial waterfront. The Port of Boston's Conley Terminal in South Boston is New England's largest full-service container terminal. Getting a load off a railcar or a barge and onto a trailer is jacking and cribbing work in its own right, and it goes into the same plan as the set at the far end.
Every heavy lift rigging job in Boston, MA is quoted from the actual work, not a rate sheet. These are the things that move the number — send them with your request and you'll get a real quote back fast:
Photos of the equipment, its nameplate, and the path out of the building save a site visit on smaller Boston jobs. For bigger moves we walk both sites before we price anything.
The same Boston crews handle every kind of industrial rigging. If your job looks more like one of these, start here:
Running a trucking fleet out of Boston? See truck dispatch for fleets of 4+ trucks.
Working throughout Boston, MA and the surrounding metro — backed by a nationwide network of 88 locations when a move crosses state lines.
Heavy Lift Rigging throughout Boston and the industrial suburbs around it — the towns below are where the plants, shops and distribution parks actually sit:
| Town | County | From downtown |
|---|---|---|
| Cambridge | Middlesex County | 3 mi |
| Quincy | Norfolk County | 8 mi |
| Worcester | Worcester County | 39 mi |
| Lowell | Middlesex County | 23 mi |
| Framingham | Middlesex County | 19 mi |
| Braintree | Norfolk County | 11 mi |
| Woburn | Middlesex County | 10 mi |
| Everett | Middlesex County | 4 mi |
| Chelsea | Suffolk County | 3 mi |
| Waltham | Middlesex County | 9 mi |
| Providence, RI | Providence County | 41 mi |
| Manchester, NH | Hillsborough County | 48 mi |
| Dorchester | Suffolk County | 4 mi |
| Brockton | Plymouth County | 19 mi |
| Fall River | Bristol County | 46 mi |
| Lynn | Essex County | 9 mi |
| Newton | Middlesex County | 8 mi |
| Nashua, NH | Hillsborough County | 35 mi |
| Warwick, RI | Kent County | 49 mi |
| Cranston, RI | Providence County | 44 mi |
| Somerville | Middlesex County | 3 mi |
| Lawrence | Essex County | 25 mi |
| Pawtucket, RI | Providence County | 37 mi |
| Framingham Center | Middlesex County | 20 mi |
Moving across the metro or out of state? See all our Boston services or get a quote.
Most Boston jobs don't stop at one service. The crew that rigs a machine out is the crew that manages the move and sets it back down — so you're dealing with one company from the disconnect to the re-level, not three subcontractors pointing at each other.
Machine has to come off the floor, through the door, or onto a pad before it travels? That's the rigging side of the same Boston crew.
Boston industrial rigging →Presses, compressors, generators, full production lines — disconnected, rigged, hauled, and re-leveled across Boston as one accountable job.
Boston machinery movers →Machine tools are instruments, not freight. VMCs, lathes, and grinders moved on air-ride and squared back to the builder's spec in Boston.
Boston CNC machine moving →Moving the whole floor instead of one machine? Phased teardown, sequenced loads, and reinstallation planning for Boston plants.
factory relocation in Boston →In Boston we also run riggers, machinery movers, CNC movers, and plant relocation, plus project freight for the jobs we rig — or see every service we offer in Boston.
The same Boston crew also handles millwright services, machinery removal, crane and rigging services, and machinery loading and unloading.
Specialty rigging in Boston: chiller and HVAC rigging, MRI and medical equipment rigging, and printing press moving.
Tell us what's moving and where. We'll route the nearest crew and quote it fast.
Get a Boston Heavy Lift Quote