Another part of set 60052, along with the track, loco and wagons, was a gantry crane, already shown on this blog in this picture:

And also in action here:

However, now it's time for a closer look.

The crane was fun to build, if a bit challenging. On the plus side it is a nice shade of industrial cautionary yellow. It's got an interesting mechanism to allow it to move along a train to get its jib into position. The down side is that it's very light (well, it is just plastic bricks after all), so a dangling sleeve, or slightly careless movement, will knock the gantry askew. It also relies heavily on stickers. Lego have their reasons for using stickers - it keeps costs down and the bricks are easier to re-purpose by modellers if they aren't printed. I don't really think those are great reasons. If you're going to spend £140 on a Lego set you're probably just as likely to spend £150 on that Lego set, which I think would cover the printing. And every AFOL I talk to much prefers printed blocks to stickers. So I wonder who Lego has asked to get the feedback that stickers are better for making other models with.

But anyway, here is the crane, built as per the instructions:

It's quite a simple process...

...first the wagon comes in. In this case, it's the cable drum wagon being unloaded.

The jib comes down and is attached to the cable using a convenient length of chain.

The cable drum goes up.

The gantry crane moves forward and the actual crane jig moves sideways.

And finally the cable is lowered to the ground.

You can then do it in reverse to reload the cable drum back onto the wagon. If you wanted to.

I'm not sure how the crane is meant to be controlled. I presume by radio control, although there is a little office built next to it with a natty interior. (And no rear wall - a common issue with Lego buildings.)

I quite like the touch that someone has left their mug next to the computer. Who says Lego isn't realistic?

So, that's the gantry crane. It's a challenging build that's a passable representation of the kind of thing you see in freight yards. It could have been a bit more robust - I imagine for children it could be a bit frustrating and fiddly. It could have had printed parts instead of stickers. But overall it's quite pleasing.