Peco LK-35 yard crane prototype?

[ColHut]

Dear All,

 

Does anyone know of an actual prototype for the above crane?  Peco advise it is based on a standard GWR type, but I cannot seem to find a picture of one, but I have few sources to check.  It looks a bit like a Midland crane with I beam jib and large pulley wheel.

 

regards.

[The Stationmaster]

Rather generic I suspect.  there is a similar one (although the main framework is different ) preserved at Hawkhurst and it looks very different from preserved MR one that's in Gloucester docks.  I've found a picture of a simlar-ish one in a GWR goods depot but can't se the main framework so don'y know if it matches.  Peco make no claims as to company origin on their website and it strikes me as a basically generic model copying the main features of a particular style of relatively low capacity crane.

[ColHut]

Thanks Mike,  quite interesting.  I emailed Peco and they said “I am advised that the kit was based on a standard GWR crane”.   Quite possibly that was quite sometime ago, and nobody really recalls anymore.  I have access to quite s few books on LMS and Midland miscellany etc, and there is something similar but not the same.

 

It may, as you say, be something of a mixture.

 

regards

 

 

[ColHut]

This is the closest I can find on the web, a 5 ton crane at Ruthin on LMS.

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/r/ruthin/ruthin3.jpg

 

They look about the same size (the Peco crane has a scale 30’ reach) but has an I beam rather than steel or wooden pole jib.

 

Quite a high capacity hand crane.

 

regards

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Quite a few cranes were manufacturer standard items, as opposed to specifically railway designed or made, so Ruthin-style cranes may well have cropped-up on several different railways, and non-railway premises. Identifying the maker can be quite difficult, unless there is a plate, or a name cast into the ballast weight etc, because oodles of general engineering works, as well as specialist crane-makers, built the smaller sizes.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Nearholmer

[ColHut]

Thanks for that.  It might be a Cowans Sheldon hand crane.  I would be curious to tske s look one day.

regards

[Rodentian Railways]

From https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1671513

 

"The ironwork was cast by Richard Kitchin of Warrington who in 1851 employed 44 men, and by 1861, at the age of 75, he employed 100 men."

 

[Steamport Southport]

21 hours ago, ColHut said:

This is the closest I can find on the web, a 5 ton crane at Ruthin on LMS.

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/r/ruthin/ruthin3.jpg

 

They look about the same size (the Peco crane has a scale 30’ reach) but has an I beam rather than steel or wooden pole jib.

 

Quite a high capacity hand crane.

 

regards

 

 

 

There's one very similar in the old goods yard at Conwy.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/78892004@N00/3694168535/

 

 

Jason

[ColHut]

There is thankyou yes.  It appears they were built by Scotland Bank Iron Works in Warrington who made a number of cranes, weighing machines and similar until their demise in the 1880s.

 

Regards