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An excellent model that certainly looks the part. Stothert and Pitt also had a design where the shoreside rail ran above the ground, often built into the warehouse but sometimes on a girder structure like the one in the background of your photo. There were several of these in the old Folkestone ferry terminal though they're long gone now. In its "rest position" how high is the end of the jib above the quayside?

 

Below the Crane in one of its previous positions and on its original gantry base, I have since  built a second base that spans a double track, hopefully!! if I can somehow get the picture the correct size excepted by this thread, you will be able to see the model to its full height.

Regards Kevin.1950255291_small277.jpg.9daf6669f879acf4c51510b0d736e604.jpg

 

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31 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

That's a mobile crane, as also used in civil engineering; these, and large 'crawler' cranes, are more and more common for quayside applications.

 

Judging by how much it is blocked up, it's sort of semi-mobile!

 

Richard

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3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

It's a similar challenge to the size of ships but if you look at the Airfix box art, though it describes it as  a "travelling crane", it's clearly being depicted as a general cargo handling crane though I don't think a crane like this would have been used in that role.

317628447_Airfixtravellingcraneboxart.jpg.7e7b69df15c09f2e334e92eb2b2b2dc9.jpg

Cranes like those on the London and Bristol docks handling ocean going general cargo ships were indeed very large compared with railway rolling stock but so were the ships they worked (Two medium sized cargo ships I sailed on were about 500ft long with a 65 ft beam which in OO would require a two metre long model) 

However, smaller ships and smaller dockside travelling cranes did exist.  Looking at photos of Weymouth harbour the height of the cranes in their most upright "rest" position is less than half the length of the Sarnia and Caeseria. These were  322ft long - about four foot three in OO so the cranes in that scale would be  no more than two feet high and I've seen smaller examples than that.   

 

To avoid hi-jacking 9793's thread, given that he's not actually planning to model Tidmouth harbour, I think we might usefully take this discussion onto the topic set up for this subject.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/145628-dockside-cranes/

Good idea.

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Two of the cranes on the South West Quay at Ipswich docks, in the days that the "wet dock" area was still receiving a decent level of commercial traffic and hadn't become a glorified yacht marina...........

89-2.JPG.42fae9114f6c696573491a18df0a36cd.JPG

Haven't looked lately, but I'm guessing they may still be there.

 

Additionally, these two cranes are alongside Dock 3 (from memory) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Can't read the manufacturers plate on them, but I think they could well have been built in Germany.7-1626.JPG.7cb1268702f1b47041f70a457966405d.JPG...

 

 

 

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The cranes I remember at Cardiff docks in my childhood were probably Stothart and Pitt level luffers, similar to the Bristol examples at the M shed.  These give a good indication of the sheer size of the beasts, and the size of the ocean going ships they were designed to work on.  Bristol docks were limited as to the size of ship they could handle by the approach up the River Avon, particularly the 'Horseshoe Bend', which is why the bigger docks still in use at Avonmouth were built; the GW's Badminton cutoff was at least partly influenced by this.  

 

The limiting factor on ship size in all the other Bristol Channel ports, Avonmouth included, is the size of the sea locks necessary in this area of extreme tidal range.  There was no standard size of locks, as there was on canal systems, and the dock owners built the longest, deepest, and widest ones they could.  These were sufficient for most cargo vessels until about the 1960s; little passenger traffic was generated by the Bristol Channel ports and the really big ships went to Tilbury, Southampton, Liverpool, or Glasgow.

 

The decline in 'traditional' port work affected the Bristol Channel ports badly, though they still hang on by the skins of their teeth, and containerisation is usually held to be the culprit.  It is, and it revolutionised cargo handling, but it is not alone; such ports also fell victim to the increasing size needed to maintain efficiency of ocean going ships.  Container ships and oil tankers need to be very big to be commercially viable, and this has benefitted ports like Felixtowe and Milford Haven with deep water berths and no locks.  

 

The cranes we are talking about here have been largely replaced by more modern types, and much of the visual character of traditional dock areas is changed as a result.  

 

I agree that a coaster kit suitable for use with 4mm scale model railways is lacking.  You can see why the Puffer is popular, they are absolutely charming little things with a lot of character, but they are not really suitable for layouts set anywhere beyond the Firth of Clyde and the islands.  They are too small and slow to be seaworthy in exposed waters such as the Irish Sea, English or Bristol Channels, or North Sea.  They are flat bottomed to 'take the hard', so that they can be grounded and unloaded at low tide when they are out of the water altogether, and this makes them very difficult to handle in heavy seas.

 

Few of us have the space to build layout wharves that can handle ocean going merchant ships of 500 or more feet length, and coasters would seem to be the answer.  The 'Dutch Barge' type is capable of being used on European canals and rivers; about 80' long and with hinged mast and funnel.  Sea going coasters are a bit bigger, typically about 120' long and 600 tons gross.  By the 1960s most were motor driven.

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2 hours ago, Tim V said:

Couple from the Bristol sand dock, the last commercial shipping into the city docks.

288452212_BristolDocks1982OM1HP5234-019.jpg.6a7a4256a8d0e2ae05a89292a7ac927f.jpg

Bristol Docks 1982 OM1 HP5 234-020.jpg

That brings back memories. When I was landscaping between 88 and 93 all our sand came from there. Early on we'd load from the hoppers seen behind the Stothert and Pitt crane in the second photo. Later in that period the hoppers went out of use and we'd be loaded by a Manitou type loader over by the portal crane in the first shot. Judging quantity was always fun. Fortunately our Forward Control Land Rover was fairly tolerant of severe overloading.

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Fourteen Stothert and Pitt level luffing cranes on either side of the Royal Victoria Dock in London  are grade 2 listed. twelve of them are from the 1960s and of modern tubular metal construction while the other two (the more interesting two to my eyes) are from the 1930s. You can see these if you go to the Excel exhibition centre but, welded solid with their cables removed,  I can't help thinking that, unlike the four in Bristol and the Sharpness examples, they've lost most of their character- a bit like a sailing ship without its rigging.

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12 hours ago, ailg8048 said:

On the subject of dockside cranes some great examples can be found at Sharpness docks,

 

These two are not used now, as roadside cranes do the job

 

Sharpness Dks LR_042

 

this one on the opposite side of the dock, is used, this shot gives you an idea of scale

 

Sharpness Dks LR_130

 

the shot below show all the cranes in one shot. Most of the trackwork for the internal railway is still in place, and yes it does run over the bridge in the picture (which it shares with the road). Just needs a little 0-4-0 and a couple of wagons to complete the set.

 

Sharpness Dks LR_028

 

 

 

 

 

Now there’s a layout waiting to be built! Working swing bridge as well as the 3 cranes would be the icing on the cake.

 Cheers 

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5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

I agree that a coaster kit suitable for use with 4mm scale model railways is lacking.  You can see why the Puffer is popular, they are absolutely charming little things with a lot of character, but they are not really suitable for layouts set anywhere beyond the Firth of Clyde and the islands.  They are too small and slow to be seaworthy in exposed waters such as the Irish Sea, English or Bristol Channels, or North Sea.  They are flat bottomed to 'take the hard', so that they can be grounded and unloaded at low tide when they are out of the water altogether, and this makes them very difficult to handle in heavy seas.

 

Few of us have the space to build layout wharves that can handle ocean going merchant ships of 500 or more feet length, and coasters would seem to be the answer.  The 'Dutch Barge' type is capable of being used on European canals and rivers; about 80' long and with hinged mast and funnel.  Sea going coasters are a bit bigger, typically about 120' long and 600 tons gross.  By the 1960s most were motor driven.

I agree and most of us have forgotten just how many small rail served ports there were around the British (and other European) coasts served by relatively small coasters. ISTR that there were  financial and regulatory reasons for keeping them below 500 gross registered tons so a lot of the Dutch style seagoing motor coasters (not necessarily Dutch,  it became a typical design type) were just below that figure though smaller ships of perhap 250- 300 grt  were not uncommon. 

 

The 60-88 ft long Clyde Puffer/VIC  has the virtue of being very small but was confined to relatively sheltered water and wasn't that typical. It's also beome a bit of a cliché, but if you go up to  90-125ft in length (length is probably the critical dimension on most layouts) and about 300 tons you get to a much wider range of properly seagoing raised quarter deck coasters. For the steamship era "Steam Coasters and Short Sea Traders" by Charles Waine and Roy Fenton  is an excellent book full of detailed drawings. (ISBN 0 905184 15 7) 

I've found a set of free plans for a model of the 250 ton Dutch coaster Cabotage here 

http://freeshipplans.com/free-model-ship-plans/250-ton-coaster-cabotage/

 

 The other answer is to simply model part of a much larger ship. Being much higher than the stern the bows of a full size cargo ship- especially one that's awaiting its next cargo - makes a good scenic break and in July 2003 Loco Revue featured a microlayout built by Yann Baude  - similar in scale to an Inglenook sidings- that did just that

 

34706-LocoRevue-672-Couverture-3.jpg.4b4c83f88fe07519c2a6665197077a21.jpg

 

1850059254_Volga2.jpg.25dfcc4d673dd4305a8ad87012621016.jpg

 

 

 

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There is a group of 14 Stothert and Pitt cranes around the Royal Victoria Dock in East London.

They now, since 2009, have grade 11 listed building status as rare survivors.

One pair dates from the 1920s with riveted lattice towers as per some photos on this thread and glazed cabins.

Most are of the DD2 type from the a960s, an award winning design of which many hundred were built.

These are of welded tubular construction. They were all originally on rails but are now fixed in position.

They appear in the film The Last of England and in the background of several films, TV programs and music videos shot at millennium Mills..

These comment are based on my notes from a walking tour that I took around the area recently.

A shame that they have all been "stuffed and mounted" rather than the trouble taken to have at least one pair preserved in working order.

Bernard

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I have to admit that I used to look at the Bristol examples and think that, suitably hollowed out, they'd make great little pieds a terre. Big picture window to the living area and enough room in the former machinery space for a kitchenette and en suite. With a bit of ingenuity and suitable flexi couplings in the power and plumbing arrangements they could even be made to track the sun for better passive solar performance. Access would be a bit of an issue for the non-young and fit, but you can't have everything.

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15 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

image.png.fdae7489d73ef3fec4eae7dffdf0f248.png

 

I seem to remember wathching Jean Michel Jarre using some of those a worrying number of years back.

 

Mike.

That concert used the walls of Millenium Mills. A brand of flour not a date.

I was very fortunate to have a legal visit to the site not so long ago.

It was heavily contaminated with asbestos materials and was being cleaned up for development.

Apologies for wandering OT but it is related to the docks and I hope of interest to a few people.

Photos show.

The mill building.

Interior with shafts and people to give an idea of the scale.

The walls are solid as flour dust can act like coal dust.

While I was there we had a very noisy visitor. An escapee from an arms fair at Excel.

There was some rather strange graffiti.

DSC_0395.JPG.6aaf229c6802e59bda66c9124c200930.JPGDSC_0445.JPG.0345253c8f264286b748c9414cd51b66.JPGDSC_0448.JPG.df18e984a0b806601fe8649abfce737b.JPGDSC_0471.JPG.53c22968318b42d54c43ad17111236c1.JPGDSC_0447.JPG.f0014d614e1fc7326b3a6e9d836f56d5.JPG

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5 hours ago, PatB said:

I have to admit that I used to look at the Bristol examples and think that, suitably hollowed out, they'd make great little pieds a terre. Big picture window to the living area and enough room in the former machinery space for a kitchenette and en suite. With a bit of ingenuity and suitable flexi couplings in the power and plumbing arrangements they could even be made to track the sun for better passive solar performance. Access would be a bit of an issue for the non-young and fit, but you can't have everything.

 

Crane 29 had a treehouse a couple of years ago, I think it was sponsored by B&Q. My friend stayed there one night, she said it was pretty cool but strange having so many people walking by.

2133482850_Screenshot2019-07-03at08_44_19.png.8e008f8fdeb625bd5050f517ac5972da.png

Edited by Corbs
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On 01/07/2019 at 12:20, Fat Controller said:

That's a mobile crane, as also used in civil engineering; these, and large 'crawler' cranes, are more and more common for quayside applications.

I'm not sure that that is a mobile crane, at least not in the sense you mean - it looks a lot like a Liebherr mobile harbour crane, which is prefectly at home wandering the docks but isn't designed to be transportable.

 

A realistic dockside would be very impressive - but also very difficult to do, simply because of space. The largest scale routinely used for model ships is 1:350, and even then the models can get very large indeed - 1:700 and 1:1200 are normal. Then, model harbours have the same problem as model railways - needing space to move the ships around - except that they're not as linear, so they wind up being wide as well as long. A realistic-looking model harbour to take large ships would wind up being comparable in size to a realistic-looking model railway: although the scale is ten times smaller, the vehicles are ten times larger!

 

Even a small harbour is still very large; Burghead is tiny, by harbour standards - a Clyde puffer would be a big ship for it - and is still about 750 feet by 350 feet.

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On 03/07/2019 at 09:55, RLBH said:

I'm not sure that that is a mobile crane, at least not in the sense you mean - it looks a lot like a Liebherr mobile harbour crane, which is prefectly at home wandering the docks but isn't designed to be transportable.

 

A realistic dockside would be very impressive - but also very difficult to do, simply because of space. The largest scale routinely used for model ships is 1:350, and even then the models can get very large indeed - 1:700 and 1:1200 are normal. Then, model harbours have the same problem as model railways - needing space to move the ships around - except that they're not as linear, so they wind up being wide as well as long. A realistic-looking model harbour to take large ships would wind up being comparable in size to a realistic-looking model railway: although the scale is ten times smaller, the vehicles are ten times larger!

 

Even a small harbour is still very large; Burghead is tiny, by harbour standards - a Clyde puffer would be a big ship for it - and is still about 750 feet by 350 feet.

When contemplating a model based on the S&DJR's Highbridge Wharf, I calculated that to include the whole area from the A38 level crossing to the far end of the sidings, beyond the pitch reservoir, would take a space of 10metres by 3metres and another metre, if one wanted to take in the far bank of the old Brue river and the cattle market. This is how far that idea has got - using the Maritime Activities of the S&D book by Chris Handley

Lecture display 7 3 2017 restaged 8 3 2017 2000px edges added.jpg

Edited by phil_sutters
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14 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

When contemplating a model based on the S&DJR's Highbridge Wharf, I calculated that to include the whole area from the A39 level crossing to the far end of the sidings, beyond the pitch reservoir, would take a space of 10metres by 3metres and another metre, if one wanted to take in the far bank of the old Brue river and the cattle market. This is how far that idea has got - using the Maritime Activities of the S&D book by Chris Handley

Lecture display 7 3 2017 restaged 8 3 2017 2000px edges added.jpg

That's a nicely-observed bit of modelling; my mother's ancestors might well have travelled from here to Newport and Burry Port during the mid/late 19th century.

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36 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

That's a nicely-observed bit of modelling; my mother's ancestors might well have travelled from here to Newport and Burry Port during the mid/late 19th century.

Thanks for your compliment. If they were travelling as passengers they would probably have travelled to Burnham, which operated as a ferry port from 1858 to 1888, although the final few years saw a decline in sailings. If they were seamen on Bristol Channel coasters, then they certainly could have been in and out of Highbridge, Bridgwater and other Somerset ports. Highbridge didn't close until 1949.

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3 hours ago, RLBH said:

I'm not sure that that is a mobile crane, at least not in the sense you mean - it looks a lot like a Liebherr mobile harbour crane, which is prefectly at home wandering the docks but isn't designed to be transportable.

 

A realistic dockside would be very impressive - but also very difficult to do, simply because of space. The largest scale routinely used for model ships is 1:350, and even then the models can get very large indeed - 1:700 and 1:1200 are normal. Then, model harbours have the same problem as model railways - needing space to move the ships around - except that they're not as linear, so they wind up being wide as well as long. A realistic-looking model harbour to take large ships would wind up being comparable in size to a realistic-looking model railway: although the scale is ten times smaller, the vehicles are ten times larger!

 

Even a small harbour is still very large; Burghead is tiny, by harbour standards - a Clyde puffer would be a big ship for it - and is still about 750 feet by 350 feet.

Looking at old photos, Burghead did, despite its awkward entrance, handle rather larger coasters than Clyde puffers and was rail connected, presumably for the fish traffic.

Modelling the whole of an enclosed dock or harbour to scale would indeed require a great deal of space though that's true of almost any significant railway facility; images such as the aerial photos in Britain From Above are quite salutary in realising  just how much land was taken up by even a smallish  shunting yard. Modelling a real port even in 4mm scale can be done, as Burntisland shows, but that is a large layout and the real Burntisland was a relatively small facility. 

 

Fortunately for us though, any number of even quite large ports consisted of quays facing onto an open body of water (often a wide river)  Southampton's  two mile long Western Docks (berths 101-110) is a particularly vast example but Weymouth, Kingswear, Newcastle, Dieppe Maritime (the old ferry port) Bordeaux, and many modern container termnals follow this pattern. So, using the quayside either as the front edge of the layout,  or with just enough width of water to accomodate a small ship in front of it, is a fairly common convention. Even with enclosed docks that can still apply so, if you were building a model of say Bristol's floating harbour you'd probably only include the M shed side with most of the basin and the quayside facing it on the opposite side behind the viewer.

If you've seen Gordon and Maggie Gravett's 7mm scale Arun Quay, that's another way of avoiding the width of water needed by having low water behind the quay and a backscene for the opposite bank and ISTR another earlier layout that used this idea .

 

What I do find interesting though is that if you look at John Ahern's Madderport or Phillip Hancocks first version of Craig, both modelled the whole harbour, in the case of Madderport supposedly a river mouth. They both look credible and even though it is rather underscale and lacks such necessities as an engine room skylight or decent sized lifeboats John Ahern's Erica tied up in Madderport does look the part. 

IMG_5302.jpg.95462804a499284c7d5aff86d41a0d99.jpg

 

 

 

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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Looking again at coasters there are some drawings in Edward Beal's New Developments in Railway Modelling of a 34 inch long 4mm/ft scale steam coaster. Edward Beal died in 1985 (at the age of 95 or 96) so his drawings will still be subject to copyright but I can PM them individually. Beal advised that any model harbour basin- something he was quite keen on including on his layouts and in his plans -  should be at least three feet long to accomodate such a vessel.

 

This ship  would be about 215 ft long but has its engine amidships. That's at the lower end of the length above which shipowners were then, for reasons of trim, balance and weight distributon, advised to go from engines aft to amidships, but not uncommon and the three island arrangement does give it more of a large ship feel. It's a good looking model and Beal apparently built two ships based on these drawings. He did make at least one significant error, the funnel is aft of the engine room skylight (needed to lift machinery in and out of the engine room as much as to provide daylight). This would put the engine forward of the boilers which is clearly wrong. I'm also not sure of the rigging but those are all easily changed and it looks like a useful design.

 

P.D. Hancock also produced a useful set of drawings for a much smaller motor coaster in MRN in April 1950 based on a photo taken in Stirling of the Dutch vessel Delta registered in Delf. The plans look pretty accurate  and do seem based on good observations; the spare propellor stored upright on the quarter deck speals volumes about the sort of shallow places such ships could wander into. The ship, with two holds, was about 125ft long so about 19 inches in 4mm/ft scale. In the accompanying article he says he'd intended it for Craig Harbour (which was going to be about 5ft x 2ft) but never built it after deciding to set the Craig and Mertonford in the Edwardian era. 

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