45 ton Ransomes Crane

[G-BOAF]

2 hours ago, Darius43 said:

TMC’s advert in the December BRM states that they have these cranes in stock.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

Their website still says 'pre order'...

https://www.themodelcentre.com/38-803-11

[Pre Grouping fan]

Spotted this review o World of Model Railways earlier. Will be printed in the Jan 2020 BRM on sale at Warley. Hopefully this suggests that production models aren't far behind. 

 

Interesting that it mentions etched plates to fit over the printed data panels. Will be interesting to see these. 

https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/reviews/Bachmann-ransomes-rapier-45t-crane/

[doktorstamp]

Like many contributors to this thread , I too, was advised by Hattons that my Bachmann pre-orders had been cancelled, result I will go elsewhere, at least on this occasion I was told, once previously I received nothing from a pre-order for Hornby's Trouts.

 

I agree it's an eye-watering price, however along with many others, I have decided to purchase one, and look forward to receiving it in due course, hoping that the expected arrival date is realistic, and correct for once, Bachmann's lead-in times are not overly reliable. My own belief is that a number of prospective purchasers quite likely, will be disappointed.

Across the Hobby today, these one-off production runs would appear to be the norm, whereas years ago if it was in the catalogue it stayed in stock at the model shop. Bean- counters and Market strategists have much to answer for.

 

Nigel

Edited November 18, 2019 by doktorstamp

[Steven Draper]

4 hours ago, doktorstamp said:

 

Across the Hobby today, these one-off production runs would appear to be the norm, whereas years ago if it was in the catalogue it stayed in stock at the model shop. Bean- counters and Market strategists have much to answer for.

 

Nigel

Scarcity sells - If in the Catalogue year in year out why buy it today ? However in the forever catalogue days the choice was a bit limited compared to now, so I suppose whether I like it or not, it's the down side from having all sorts of interesting models.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Steven Draper
Saved too early !!

[Dunsignalling]

On ‎18‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 15:05, doktorstamp said:

 

I agree it's an eye-watering price, however along with many others, I have decided to purchase one, and look forward to receiving it in due course, hoping that the expected arrival date is realistic, and correct for once, Bachmann's lead-in times are not overly reliable. My own belief is that a number of prospective purchasers quite likely, will be disappointed.

Across the Hobby today, these one-off production runs would appear to be the norm, whereas years ago if it was in the catalogue it stayed in stock at the model shop. Bean- counters and Market strategists have much to answer for.

 

Nigel

How many of these could the average model shop afford to keep in stock on the off-chance that somebody might just walk in and buy one some time in the next year or two?

 

These are specialist items at (justifiably) premium prices, and will represent very specific buying decisions for those who want them.

 

John

[JSpencer]

On 18/11/2019 at 16:05, doktorstamp said:

 

Across the Hobby today, these one-off production runs would appear to be the norm, whereas years ago if it was in the catalogue it stayed in stock at the model shop. Bean- counters and Market strategists have much to answer for.

 

 

Back in the 1990s, when I worked at the Signalbox, we were already telling people that if they saw something they wanted, then grab it before it sold out. 

Already back then, manufacturers were not really re-doing the same models year in and year out (*) but variety was no where near as much as today.

You also had to phone around if your local had sold out and could not get any more.

I would have to go back to the mid/early 80s or 70s to see the same models year in and year out which probably "partly" explains the down turn in sales at time.

 

Today model shops have an awful lot of stuff to choose from, order and stock. This crane must be giving some a headache unless they have a healthy demand for it from their customers.  In fact me as an end customer, I find myself being spoilt for choice over these past few years. I could easily afford the lot but know I would never put on display nor run that lot either.

 

(*) there were and still are exceptions, Flying Scotsman and Smokey Joe spring to mind!

[phil gollin]

.

 

Bachmann made a rod for their own back when they chose to do just 4 crane versions in what is PRESUMABLY the first run of kits - but this was their commercial decision.

 

I would like a BR Black "Southern Region" version, but the BR Black version released by Bachmann first time around is the Eastern Region one, so I will need to wait for a later release (or get someone to repaint the Southern crane version, including new markings.  So my choice is between, say, £215 pounds plus £150-ish painting costs and hoping that Bachmann release a Southern Region crane for (GUESS) £250-plus is a year or two.

 

That is Bachmann's choice and my choice, I hope we both "guessed" correctly.

 

.

[JSpencer]

17 hours ago, phil gollin said:

I would like a BR Black "Southern Region" version, but the BR Black version released by Bachmann first time around is the Eastern Region one, so I will need to wait for a later release (or get someone to repaint the Southern crane version, including new markings.  So my choice is between, say, £215 pounds plus £150-ish painting costs and hoping that Bachmann release a Southern Region crane for (GUESS) £250-plus is a year or two.

 

 

FWIW - The BR black eastern region one is now preserved in the south on the Bluebell railway, which justifies it on my layout.

[cctransuk]

18 hours ago, phil gollin said:

.

 

Bachmann made a rod for their own back when they chose to do just 4 crane versions in what is PRESUMABLY the first run of kits - but this was their commercial decision.

 

I would like a BR Black "Southern Region" version, but the BR Black version released by Bachmann first time around is the Eastern Region one, so I will need to wait for a later release (or get someone to repaint the Southern crane version, including new markings.  So my choice is between, say, £215 pounds plus £150-ish painting costs and hoping that Bachmann release a Southern Region crane for (GUESS) £250-plus is a year or two.

 

That is Bachmann's choice and my choice, I hope we both "guessed" correctly.

 

.

 

Can anyone say what the early 1960s livery for the GWR version would have been - or even better, point me at a photo?

 

I have ordered the grey GWR version, but I intend to refinish it in BR(WR) livery.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[The Stationmaster]

8 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

Can anyone say what the early 1960s livery for the GWR version would have been - or even better, point me at a photo?

 

I have ordered the grey GWR version, but I intend to refinish it in BR(WR) livery.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Overall black John - standard WR departmental livery.  the Old oak crane did acquire some yellow stripes on the back end of the superstructure although i don't know if ever acquired overall yellow while in original condition.  I worked with it on a re-railing job c.1979 and it was definitely black then although it had by then acquired its patch of yellow stripes.  Here is a 1977 picture of it I've found on Flickr -

 

 

 

[cctransuk]

35 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Overall black John - standard WR departmental livery.  the Old oak crane did acquire some yellow stripes on the back end of the superstructure although i don't know if ever acquired overall yellow while in original condition.  I worked with it on a re-railing job c.1979 and it was definitely black then although it had by then acquired its patch of yellow stripes.  Here is a 1977 picture of it I've found on Flickr -

 

 

 

 

That's great thanks - I will now need to find photos of the various painted lettering on the crane and supporting wagons so that I can compile a transfer sheet for the BR livery. Ideally, I would like to represent GWR crane 17 in its BR condition before being cascaded to the LMR.

 

If succesful, I will add the transfer sheet to my website for the benefit of anyone else mad enough to take a paintbrush to this somewhat expensive model.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[The Stationmaster]

17 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

That's great thanks - I will now need to find photos of the various painted lettering on the crane and supporting wagons so that I can compile a transfer sheet for the BR livery. Ideally, I would like to represent GWR crane 17 in its BR condition before being cascaded to the LMR.

 

If succesful, I will add the transfer sheet to my website for the benefit of anyone else mad enough to take a paintbrush to this somewhat expensive model.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

I can only find one other photo, also in colour, and it is in Volume 2 of Peter Tatlow's book on breakdown cranes and is dated October 1963.  In summary -

 

No wasp stripes on the superstructure, flywheel painted (which seems to be a common feature on WR cranes in that period and later), no lettering at all on the relieving bogies (as in the picture above), larger handwheels painted yellow (as in the picture above).  All lettering on the crane, apart from it being the opposite side is is in white.  The problem comes with the match truck - the picture above and all the others except one which I can find of large WR cranes show the match truck lettered as in the picture above on the centre panel, i.e. -

RM

MATCH TRUCK  or (most commonly)

MATCH

TRUCK

and in most cases with the crane number below, just as a numeral.

 

However in 1963 the match truck for crane No 19 was letter on the opposite side as a single row, thus -

No.19  MATCH  TRUCK  spread over 3 panels with one word in each panel and it was lettered in the normal departmental 'straw' coloured lettering.   All the others are as per the crane show above being lettered in white.   This suggests to me that there might have been a change in style and that for whatever reason straw coloured lettering was discontinued.

 

The other thing to note is that at some time during the mid 1960s the R&M Dept became the M&EE dept and the letters 'RM' were replaced by 'ME'.  I can't exactly date when that cjange occurred but it had happened by the time I joined the WR in September 1966 although a former colleague who started a few years earlier had in fact worked in the R&M dept as it then was.  How quickly lettering on departmental stock changed was probably in the lap of the goods and could well have been spread over some years, I can certainly remember stock still lettered RM being around in the late 1960s and some stuff (but probably not cranes) carried it for a long while after that.

[craneman]

On 21/11/2019 at 16:02, cctransuk said:

 

Can anyone say what the early 1960s livery for the GWR version would have been - or even better, point me at a photo?

 

I have ordered the grey GWR version, but I intend to refinish it in BR(WR) livery.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

 

I have an extensive collection of photos of all the 45-tonners, including many of the GWR cranes in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Circa 1960, the ex-GW cranes were all-over black but with the following painted white: Jib head, side plates of load block, side face of rims of crank disks, all raised lettering on all the cast plates (with the exception of the letter "G"  in "G W R" wherever it appeared, thus it showed as "W R"), the radius indicator pointers and scale graduations,  and the handbrake handwheels. All the photos are monochrome, which makes it difficult to be certain what colour the travelling clutch handwheels and RB loading handwheels were painted, but I believe them to be red for the former (this was normal due to the danger of inadvertent engagement) and either white or possibly yellow for the latter. At that time there would have been no warning stripes on any of them, but these had appeared by 1969. In effect the only real difference between what you have ordered and what you want is that the grey became darker! At some stage during the 1960s the handrails and all footsteps (on crane, RBs and runner) were painted white, but it is not certain exactly when this happened.

 

Note that as I pointed out in a post much earlier in this thread the only R&R crane ever to receive all-over yellow livery was ADRR95213 (ex-GWR 19) which was afflicted thus in the early/mid 1980s whilst at Laira.

 

None of the 45-tonners ever had the prominent GWR branding that the earlier 36-tonners carried pre-nationalisation, and hence their appearance changed less than the latter.

 

Sadly I cannot post any of the photos in question since they have been supplied to me by the copyright holders for personal use only, not for publication.

 

It would certainly appear, and there is ample photographic evidence to support this, that the WR continued to do its own thing as far as painting these cranes was concerned and ignored all directives from head office, thus cranes were repainted piecemeal and there was no general policy of applying wasp stripes, which handrails, etc. The only sure way to get a 100% accurate model is to find a photo of the crane you want on the date you want and use that as the basis of the detail (which as it happens is exactly what has been done with the Bachmann model).

Edited November 22, 2019 by craneman

[cctransuk]

10 hours ago, craneman said:

 

I have an extensive collection of photos of all the 45-tonners, including many of the GWR cranes in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Circa 1960, the ex-GW cranes were all-over black but with the following painted white: Jib head, side plates of load block, side face of rims of crank disks, all raised lettering on all the cast plates (with the exception of the letter "G"  in "G W R" wherever it appeared, thus it showed as "W R"), the radius indicator pointers and scale graduations,  and the handbrake handwheels. All the photos are monochrome, which makes it difficult to be certain what colour the travelling clutch handwheels and RB loading handwheels were painted, but I believe them to be red for the former (this was normal due to the danger of inadvertent engagement) and either white or possibly yellow for the latter. At that time there would have been no warning stripes on any of them, but these had appeared by 1969. In effect the only real difference between what you have ordered and what you want is that the grey became darker! At some stage during the 1960s the handrails and all footsteps (on crane, RBs and runner) were painted white, but it is not certain exactly when this happened.

 

Note that as I pointed out in a post much earlier in this thread the only R&R crane ever to receive all-over yellow livery was ADRR95213 (ex-GWR 19) which was afflicted thus in the early/mid 1980s whilst at Laira.

 

None of the 45-tonners ever had the prominent GWR branding that the earlier 36-tonners carried pre-nationalisation, and hence their appearance changed less than the latter.

 

Sadly I cannot post any of the photos in question since they have been supplied to me by the copyright holders for personal use only, not for publication.

 

It would certainly appear, and there is ample photographic evidence to support this, that the WR continued to do its own thing as far as painting these cranes was concerned and ignored all directives from head office, thus cranes were repainted piecemeal and there was no general policy of applying wasp stripes, which handrails, etc. The only sure way to get a 100% accurate model is to find a photo of the crane you want on the date you want and use that as the basis of the detail (which as it happens is exactly what has been done with the Bachmann model).

 

Thank you for your detailed response - it is much appreciated.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[G-BOAF]

Any updated ETA on the cranes?

It is now December. When do Bachmann deliveries usually come in every month?

[AY Mod]

21 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

When do Bachmann deliveries usually come in every month?

 

No specific date, there's a ship on the route used each week so it depends when a container is ready to be sent rather than infrequent sailings.

[Garethp8873]

Wow... just wow.

 

 

[russ p]

I just hope they don't offer a motorised version after we've all bought this one

Is it actually available now?

[Pre Grouping fan]

15 minutes ago, russ p said:

I just hope they don't offer a motorised version after we've all bought this one

Is it actually available now?

There's no chance of a motorised model. As been discussed before it will likely be pushing 4 figures like similar European branded products. But there's very little room in this to do so so I think we're safe. 

 

It's due this month according to the Bachmann availability webpage. 

[Roy Langridge]

I predict three things:

• Somebody will motorise theirs;
• Somebody will ask for it in N gauge;
• Somebody will moan that they have broken theirs in the first week!

More seriously, I have been quite critical of Bachmann in another thread. Whilst not for me, that crane is a cracking model.

Roy

 

[Dunsignalling]

36 minutes ago, Roy Langridge said:

I predict three things:

• Somebody will motorise theirs;
• Somebody will ask for it in N gauge;
• Somebody will moan that they have broken theirs in the first week!

More seriously, I have been quite critical of Bachmann in another thread. Whilst not for me, that crane is a cracking model.

Roy

 

 

1, Inevitable, but I'll bet nobody will want to do it more than once.

2. A model is already available r-t-r in N from Great Western Replicas. Osborn's from Bideford had them on sale at a show (Nailsea?) earlier in the year.

 

3. Would be likely to include me,  which is why I'll probably be avoiding the risk by not be buying one.

 

I agree, it looks absolutely beautiful, but I'd be scared to use it and I'm trying not to be a collector.

 

John

Edited December 5, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[friscopete]

40 minutes ago, Roy Langridge said:

I predict three things:

• Somebody will motorise theirs;
• Somebody will ask for it in N gauge;
• Somebody will moan that they have broken theirs in the first week!

More seriously, I have been quite critical of Bachmann in another thread. Whilst not for me, that crane is a cracking model.

Roy

 

you missed out wrong era

wont go round my 1st radius roundy bits

It doesnt do what my 700 quid Roco one does

 

\

[G-BOAF]

5 hours ago, Garethp8873 said:

Wow... just wow.

 

 

Does look absolutely wonderful.

However the printed plate running over the moulded conduit is something of a let down. Clearly only one bodyside tooling was produced, but maybe the conduit should not have been moulded on as it does have a different routing on this crane. It could have been a seperate wire or just left off for modeler to invent.

It is hard to see how an etched plate can fit over the printed one in this arrangement ....

 

Minor gripe (more WIBN)  that the cylinders only work for the hook lowering and not the jib, but I guess a clutch engaging the pistons for two sets of gears would have been too difficult to engineer and produce.

Well also having to find some sleepers to put under the outriggers :-p

 

Can't wait for mine. Really fantastic model

[paul 27]

Modelling the sixties did the Gorton / Newton crane cover the whole Manchester Area or was there

any other similar cranes used.

Edited December 5, 2019 by paul 27

[Gibbo675]

7 minutes ago, paul 27 said:

Modelling the sixties did the Gorton / Newton crane cover the whole Manchester Area or was there

any other similar cranes used.

Hi Paul,

 

Various districts had cranes to cover any reasonably likely event with the cranes being match capacity wise to these likely occurrences. Should the Gorton crane not be large enough or not be able to access the incident for some reason then a crane from a neighbouring district would be sent to either assist or to cover the job appropriately. There were cranes at Newton Heath and Gorton in the Manchester area with cranes at Wigan, Leeeds and Crewe within 50 miles or so which could be called upon if required should a large incident occur or a planned operation such as a bridge girder lift.

Large incidents such as Harrow and Wealdstone required more than one crane and cranes were sent from as many depots as were required.

 

Gibbo.