45 ton Ransomes Crane

[Pre Grouping fan]

They're working on repairing the outer and building a new inner firebox. So probably to make work easier at the time. 

[Bernard Lamb]

19 hours ago, doktorstamp said:

Here we see DS 1580 in action again. Found purely by chance when reloading the side.

 

Quite what he wasn't thinking when choosing to support it on those pallets clearly requires another mindset, I would also surmise that an understanding of physics was seriously lacking.

 

To all have a very good New Year.

 

mfG

 

Nigel

I would describe it as a superb example of practical engineering, making the best use of the equipment that was available.

Or put it another way. I would rather employee those people, when working on site and up against a deadline with a massive penalty clause, than employ you.

Having spent too long in such situations over the years I have always gone with the maxim "An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory".

Praise and honour to all those involved.

Bernard

[St Enodoc]

9 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I would describe it as a superb example of practical engineering, making the best use of the equipment that was available.

Or put it another way. I would rather employee those people, when working on site and up against a deadline with a massive penalty clause, than employ you.

Having spent too long in such situations over the years I have always gone with the maxim "An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory".

Praise and honour to all those involved.

Bernard

So:

 

- putting the boiler down direct on the ground with no packing at all

- walking under a suspended load

- putting the boiler down on pallets that were being crushed by its weight in an uncontrolled and unpredictable way

- lowering and rotating the boiler at what appeared to be an increasing load radius

 

are all a superb example of practical engineering?

 

Not in my book they're not.

[trevor7598]

Some people on here have clearly never worked on projects in railway preservation.

A job needs to be done, but ideal facilities are not available, the answer, improvisation.

The ideal may cost a lot of money ( never enough funds ), but the improvised way, nothing.

 

A job that could be potentially risky or dangerous requires careful planning, and it is essential

to make sure that any equipment to be employed is up to the job, and anyone not competent

is kept well away.

 

I have successfully run two major carriage restoration projects on the Bluebell Railway,

much of the work was carried out before the present, wonderful, facilities were built so

we had to make the most of what we had.

[G-BOAF]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

- putting the boiler down on pallets that were being crushed by its weight in an uncontrolled and unpredictable way

 

Was this uncontrolled? I mean the crane driver seemed to be in full control and could have stopped lowering/crushing pallets at any moment.

The boiler had guide ropes tied to it to prevent swinging, and all humans were a safe distance.

I speak as a non-expert casual observer.

Edited December 30, 2019 by G-BOAF

[atom3624]

Having worked on minesites around the world, and within quite a few poorly funded laboratories, I've witnessed the 2 extremes of 'make do to the best with facilities available' and 'risk assess everything to death' (to literally avoid one).

 

I can understand both sides of this 'coin', but quite aside from the potential for damage, wasting valuable private investors' funds, there is that consideration for Health and Safety, which can easily be neglected to varying degrees in the interests of 'getting the job done'.

 

I hope nobody was injured, and neither that there was any damage incurred.

 

OK, back to the original intention of the videos:

Great to see the old crane in action.

Nice to see that there is reasonable progress in the restoration to normal use of 35005.

 

Al.

[The Stationmaster]

47 minutes ago, trevor7598 said:

Some people on here have clearly never worked on projects in railway preservation.

A job needs to be done, but ideal facilities are not available, the answer, improvisation.

The ideal may cost a lot of money ( never enough funds ), but the improvised way, nothing.

 

A job that could be potentially risky or dangerous requires careful planning, and it is essential

to make sure that any equipment to be employed is up to the job, and anyone not competent

is kept well away.

 

I have successfully run two major carriage restoration projects on the Bluebell Railway,

much of the work was carried out before the present, wonderful, facilities were built so

we had to make the most of what we had.

 

 

Beautiful jobs but as with any work the whole point about working with a crane (one probably wasn't involved in your carriage restoration) or any other lifting kit is that you do the job with some basic safety provisions in place.  So you don't walk under a suspended load - safety helmets won't help when something that big slips a sling and lands on you.   You use proper packing that hopefully won't break and send very large splinters of wood flying in all directions (it happens, I once saw a very amateurish BR breakdown gang manage exactly that with poor packing material - it went everywhere, at speed).  And with cranes you take great care with the load radius otherwise they have a nasty habit of capsizing.

 

Whenever I worked with one as a traffic supervisor I kept my distance and made sure the crane supervisor obeyed the basic operational safety Rules which were my responsibility (some were inclined not to in order to save time).  All lifting gear has its dangers but cranes are undoubtedly the most dangerous and over the years badly managed crane lifts have killed people.

[trevor7598]

9 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Beautiful jobs but as with any work the whole point about working with a crane (one probably wasn't involved in your carriage restoration) or any other lifting kit is that you do the job with some basic safety provisions in place.  So you don't walk under a suspended load - safety helmets won't help when something that big slips a sling and lands on you.   You use proper packing that hopefully won't break and send very large splinters of wood flying in all directions (it happens, I once saw a very amateurish BR breakdown gang manage exactly that with poor packing material - it went everywhere, at speed).  And with cranes you take great care with the load radius otherwise they have a nasty habit of capsizing.

 

Whenever I worked with one as a traffic supervisor I kept my distance and made sure the crane supervisor obeyed the basic operational safety Rules which were my responsibility (some were inclined not to in order to save time).  All lifting gear has its dangers but cranes are undoubtedly the most dangerous and over the years badly managed crane lifts have killed people.

We had to use mobile cranes several times with 7598.

To lift the grounded body onto a lorry, and lift it off at Horsted Keynes.

The LNWR underframe used was placed on trestles by a crane, and later flipped over

on the trestles to work on the underside, again by crane.

Finally the coach body was placed on the shortened, refurbished underframe by crane.

 

No, none of the above involved anything as heavy as a Merchant Navy boiler, which was

a planned and clearly successful exercise to upturn the boiler, however ' Heath Robinson '

the job may have looked.

 

Welcome to the realities of railway preservation.

 

Back to the Bachmann crane now!.

[St Enodoc]

59 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

Was this uncontrolled? I mean the crane driver seemed to be in full control and could have stopped lowering/crushing pallets at any moment.

The boiler had guide ropes tied to it to prevent swinging, and all humans were a safe distance.

I speak as a non-expert casual observer.

Mike has written above about the problems in general terms. My specific point was that the uncontrolled and unpredictable behaviour of the crushing pallets was resulting in the boiler rolling away from the crane. Even if the driver had stopped the rope smoothly there was a risk that the boiler woudl continue to roll, moving the lift rope further from the crane and causing it to topple in exactly the way Mike described (if he had stopped the rope with a jerk, the elasticity and "rebound" could actually have tipped the crane over backwards - this is far worse).

 

Proper packing and a stay rope from one of the rails and passed over the top of the boiler, eased using a Tirfor winch or similar as the load was lowered, would have controlled this risk very effectively.

 

Oh, and one of the humans definitely wasn't at a safe distance, hence my comment about walking under a suspended load.

Edited December 30, 2019 by St Enodoc
typos

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, trevor7598 said:

Some people on here have clearly never worked on projects in railway preservation.

A job needs to be done, but ideal facilities are not available, the answer, improvisation.

The ideal may cost a lot of money ( never enough funds ), but the improvised way, nothing.

 

A job that could be potentially risky or dangerous requires careful planning, and it is essential

to make sure that any equipment to be employed is up to the job, and anyone not competent

is kept well away.

 

I have successfully run two major carriage restoration projects on the Bluebell Railway,

much of the work was carried out before the present, wonderful, facilities were built so

we had to make the most of what we had.

 

7 minutes ago, trevor7598 said:

We had to use mobile cranes several times with 7598.

To lift the grounded body onto a lorry, and lift it off at Horsted Keynes.

The LNWR underframe used was placed on trestles by a crane, and later flipped over

on the trestles to work on the underside, again by crane.

Finally the coach body was placed on the shortened, refurbished underframe by crane.

 

No, none of the above involved anything as heavy as a Merchant Navy boiler, which was

a planned and clearly successful exercise to upturn the boiler, however ' Heath Robinson '

the job may have looked.

 

Welcome to the realities of railway preservation.

 

Back to the Bachmann crane now!.

Trevor, as a one-time Bluebell volunteer myself (member since about 1968 and counting) I am hesitant to cross swords with you but I, like you, understand fully that improvisation is often the order of the day on projects like yours. For me, that means taking even more care to do things safely, especially with one-off jobs, as the risks associated with improvisation are far higher.

 

While the boiler lift in the videos was clearly successful, my view is that this was despite of, not because of, the planning, methods, tools, people and equipment used.

[St Enodoc]

26 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

if he had stopped the rope with a jerk, the elasticity and "rebound" could actually have tipped the crane over backwards - this is far worse

See, for example, the incident reported in the Railway Observer for  October 1976 (and mentioned in the Breakdown Crane Association forum pages http://www.bdca.org.uk/forumtwo/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=126)
"Wimbledon based 75 ton diesel breakdown crane ADB965186 whilst involved in the clear up of an incident at Rowlands Castle on the 10th August 1976 toppled over and had to be itself re-railed."

[The Stationmaster]

Very pertinently to the Bachmann R&R crane the Old Oak Common crane went over on a re-railing job near Uffington on the GWML back in the early 1960s while clearing up after a major derailment of short wheelbase wagons. Another crane (possibly No.19 the Swindon 45 tonner?)  went over on the same job and both could be seen capsized - which made the newspapers in a few photos.  They had only been lifting wagons but in some cases probably at maximum radius as the wagons had gone down the embankment.  The Willesden crane was one of the two called out to recover them.

 

[JSpencer]

6 hours ago, trevor7598 said:

Some people on here have clearly never worked on projects in railway preservation.

A job needs to be done, but ideal facilities are not available, the answer, improvisation.

The ideal may cost a lot of money ( never enough funds ), but the improvised way, nothing.

 

A job that could be potentially risky or dangerous requires careful planning, and it is essential

to make sure that any equipment to be employed is up to the job, and anyone not competent

is kept well away.

 

I have successfully run two major carriage restoration projects on the Bluebell Railway,

much of the work was carried out before the present, wonderful, facilities were built so

we had to make the most of what we had.

 

Nice work and nice post. The second photo looks like it was taken at a London terminus. Was this for the 2017 Wonder Woman film?

[trevor7598]

23 minutes ago, JSpencer said:

 

Nice work and nice post. The second photo looks like it was taken at a London terminus. Was this for the 2017 Wonder Woman film?

Many thanks, the second photo was taken on 6/2/2016, at King's Cross for, as you say.

 the filming of Wonder Woman. I've not seen the film yet.

[Pre Grouping fan]

Managed to run my new acquisition on a firends loft layout. It ran very well over trackwork I'm informed is 20 years old and with rather worn insulated Frog points with no faults other than those induced by human error. It certainly travelled at speeds in excess of a scale 45mph which is credit to bachmanns design especially as the relieving bogies and jib runner aren't that heavy. Also a bit of fun at the end of the day it was positioned in a  heavy super freight along with a Wickham trolley and mince pie! Again no issues.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by Pre Grouping fan

[craneman]

The ladder on the water tank in the second photo would be an exciting climb!

 

I was reading the Model Rail review earlier. According to its reviewer you can see the cylinders move when you twiddle the knob! Do these clowns never actually read what they're writing?!

 

Apart from that the magazine rates the model rather highly, suggesting that it's possibly the best RTR OO model yet produced.

[Pre Grouping fan]

6 minutes ago, craneman said:

The ladder on the water tank in the second photo would be an exciting climb!

 

I was reading the Model Rail review earlier. According to its reviewer you can see the cylinders move when you twiddle the knob! Do these clowns never actually read what they're writing?!

 

Apart from that the magazine rates the model rather highly, suggesting that it's possibly the best RTR OO model yet produced.

Indeed! Didn't notice that to be honest.

 

Sounds like the "editing" of our local newspaper. 

 

I would have to agree with that, the thought/engineering that went into the mechanism (you can see the worm and the gears the drive underneath the gears if you look closely) and the production line having to assemble it all put it up there with one of the best. 

[atom3624]

I know it's just me, but I still expect to see Thomas or James pulling one of those cranes ... !!

 

Al.

[Michael Delamar]

 

Flickr link click on photo.

[JSpencer]

15 hours ago, trevor7598 said:

Many thanks, the second photo was taken on 6/2/2016, at King's Cross for, as you say.

 the filming of Wonder Woman. I've not seen the film yet.

 

Plot wise, the film is a comic book story but the sets they used were historically really well done. Ok you can spot minor flaws, but they did a far better job on these details than Nolan did with Dunkirk (released the same year) which was supposed to be portraying an actual historical event (and the plot there has more fantasy points than Wonder Woman!). I was really happy to see Bluebell rolling stock on the cinema screen when I saw Wonder Woman.

[JSpencer]

Mine has arrived finally. The model is indeed really detailed. Personally I would have preferred Bachmann supplying this with the jib in travel position (ready to sit in a siding or display case or actually run in a train) but that is a minor point. I feel it is a bit of white elephant and somewhat fragile like an egg shell but by far the best UK RTR crane to date.

 

Here are picks with a P class (both crane and P class are preserved on the Bluebell) and next to two 40 year old previous efforts at a UK RTR crane:

 

[Pre Grouping fan]

I think the raised Jib ensures the cables are under tension to prevent the risk of de-rigging. Even though there's the spring tensioning the Jib there's still the possibility of it lifting up when lowered, reducing tension and increasing the risk of everything going badly. Personally I don't find it an issue, its also an excuse to watch everything moving when moving the Jib for running or putting it away. 

[H2Eric]

I finally got my BR black version, spiffing model! Just one thing, on each side of the chimney there are what appear to be two hooks, unfortunately both pinged off in next to no time. Has anyone else suffered the same?

[craneman]

On 16/12/2019 at 21:12, corsair said:

Hello does any one know were the ladder part 4 goes it’s not shown on the instructions about were it goes 

I believe that the ladder is provided for the benefit of those who want to represent ADRR 95208 (RS 1097) in its final condition. This crane has a steel ladder affixed to the rear of the tail weight to facilitate access to the cab roof, probably originally provided to allow a chimney extension to be safely fitted.

 

I haven't been able to determine when this ladder was installed but I believe it was before the crane was sold into preservation. When I get the time I will research this interesting question further. I suspect that the ladder was fitted at the time the hinged chimney was removed, possibly as a result of concerns about safety running under OLE.

[craneman]

3 hours ago, H2Eric said:

I finally got my BR black version, spiffing model! Just one thing, on each side of the chimney there are what appear to be two hooks, unfortunately both pinged off in next to no time. Has anyone else suffered the same?

The "hooks" are a rudimentary representation of the chimney lifting gear which this crane retained far longer than most. The shape of the moulded parts only makes sense when the chimney is in the lowered position, so in some ways it's not a bad thing if they've fallen off if you ever want to raise the chimney. It's not a widely-reported problem however.

 

I suspect that the reason that this particular crane retained its lifting gear for so long is that it was actually never used. This crane, whilst at Gorton, received some unique modifications, one of which appears to have been an alteration to the exhaust to produce forced draughting through the boiler, which would have made it impossible to raise the extension chimney. There is actually photographic evidence that the lifting gear stayed on the crane after the chimney it was designed to raise had been discarded.

 

I have noted earlier in this thread that on the whole the extension chimneys on the 45-ton R&R cranes were seldom used since they made (and make) very little difference to the excellent steaming qualities of the Cochran Hopwood cross-tube boiler. I can only speculate on the consequences of introducing forced draughting, but I imagine that it would tend to rip holes in the fire. Sadly no records exist concerning the modification, so we don't know why it was done, whose idea it was, nor whether it was considered a success. All traces had been removed by the time the crane was sold into preservation.