How are cranes at wagon repair depots and sidings used?

[Will Crompton]

Looking at pictures of wagon repair depots and sidings both existing and closed one finds a variety of cranes depicted at these sites including rail mounted cranes, gantry cranes and even road cranes such as this one in a photo of Blyth Cambois TMD by John Reay.

 

This picture clearly shows a wheelset being lifted as described by answers to a question I asked in an earlier thread -

Were/are cranes ever used to lift wagons up to allow wheel sets to be changed or were/are wagons raised up on jacks to allow this? I wonder as I have seen photos of steam locomotives being lifted by a gantry crane at a depot. Also were another bits of heavy kit, other than wheelsets, moved using cranes at wagon repair depots/sidings?

Edited January 19 by Will Crompton
typo

[The Stationmaster]

Some wahgon repair cri[pple sidings might have had use of a rail mounted hand crane - e/g/ Westbury (Wilts) but in many cases all they used were jacks.  Jacks were used for all sorts of jobs as they were cheap and effective but could be slow and labour intensive.

 

Far more derailed vehicles were put back where they should be by jacks than were ever lifted by cranes and plenty of re-railings used far less sophisticated kit than jacks - timber packing and old fishplates were commonly used although at one placeI'd managed to secure a couple of pieces of sheet steel - less inclined to break than fishplates.  Some people managed very well using wheel spagras r to re-rail vehicles and I once watched a couple of NCB blokes use a bull winch to re-rail four 16 ton Mins.

 

So hand worked stuff was the order of the day for much of the railway and cripple sidings were no exception.

[Will Crompton]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Some wahgon repair cri[pple sidings might have had use of a rail mounted hand crane - e/g/ Westbury (Wilts) but in many cases all they used were jacks.  Jacks were used for all sorts of jobs as they were cheap and effective but could be slow and labour intensive.

 

Far more derailed vehicles were put back where they should be by jacks than were ever lifted by cranes and plenty of re-railings used far less sophisticated kit than jacks - timber packing and old fishplates were commonly used although at one placeI'd managed to secure a couple of pieces of sheet steel - less inclined to break than fishplates.  Some people managed very well using wheel spagras r to re-rail vehicles and I once watched a couple of NCB blokes use a bull winch to re-rail four 16 ton Mins.

 

So hand worked stuff was the order of the day for much of the railway and cripple sidings were no exception.

Many thanks, I have been wondering, as noted in my question about the use of jacks especially as they seem to be used at modern locations such as the small WRD at Tees Yard. I would be interested to know if the same basic design as the modern examples were used back in the 1970s and 80s. Here's a picture showing the jacks at Tees from about 10 years ago posted on Flickr by Yogi59.

 

[Mark Saunders]

7 hours ago, Will Crompton said:

Looking at pictures of wagon repair depots and sidings both existing and closed one finds a variety of cranes depicted at these sites including rail mounted cranes, gantry cranes and even road cranes such as this one in a photo of Blyth Cambois TMD by John Reay.

 

This picture clearly shows a wheelset being lifted as described by answers to a question I asked in an earlier thread -

Were/are cranes ever used to lift wagons up to allow wheel sets to be changed or were/are wagons raised up on jacks to allow this? I wonder as I have seen photos of steam locomotives being lifted by a gantry crane at a depot. Also were another bits of heavy kit, other than wheelsets, moved using cranes at wagon repair depots/sidings?

This was not a BR C&W repair but Wagon Repairs using the siding to wheel exchange on an Alcan hired wagon!

[Stoke West]

17 minutes ago, Mark Saunders said:

This was not a BR C&W repair but Wagon Repairs using the siding to wheel exchange on an Alcan hired wagon!

Coton Hill had an overhead gantry hoist

[MartinRS]

I can remember being told by a S&T senior technician that I was to accompany him to the site of a derailment (at the former MR carriage sidings, adjacent to the former GCR line above Nunney Junction) to asses any damage to the signalling equipment. I had every expectation that I would get to see a crane close-up. When we arrived on-site there were lots of staff jacking-up the carriage without the use of a crane.

 

The only times I saw a crane (and judging by the emissions it was steam powered) was when I worked at Woodhouse Junction Signal Cabin, close to Beighton Yard on a  couple of occasions in the mid to late 1970s. It was too far away to see exactly what the crane was doing. As far as I know Beighton Yard didn't handle goods. I suspect it was used to load departmental wagons with sleepers and pre-formed sections of rail. It could even have been one of the cranes pictured here in a much earlier photo of the site.

Edited January 20 by MartinRS
Corrected name of signal cabin

[MartinRS]

Here is an unusual (I think) use of a crane coaling a Duchess. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/150979-standard-cowans-sheldon-15t-crane-mk1-and-mk2-jib-announced/page/14/

Edited January 20 by MartinRS

[Will Crompton]

31 minutes ago, MartinRS said:

Here is an unusual (I think) use of a crane coaling a Duchess. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/150979-standard-cowans-sheldon-15t-crane-mk1-and-mk2-jib-announced/page/14/

Well, that's one way of doing it!!!🤣

[Artless Bodger]

A 100T oil tank wagon was rewheeled in APM West Mill siding (known as Brookgate Siding I think) using a hired in Iron Fairy type road crane. The oil train arrived with one bogie on skates, the defective wagon was shunted out of the train once the tanks had been emptied and was left on a spare road. Two wheelsets were delivered by a later 'pick up' goods on the line (headcode 4G?) on a lowmac. After the wheelsets had been exchanged the tank wagon and the duff wheels on the lowmac were removed a the head of our next oil train. I posted a view somewhere on here once of the departing train.

[The Stationmaster]

Evn as late as the 1970s (and later in many places) cost was an im portant element.  Thus if something simple and inexpensive could do the job then that is what was used - hence the widespread use of manually worked jacks and plenty of timber packing.  

 

Once the MFD hydraiulic jacks came on the scene the main thing they did was reduce a lot of the physical effort and speed up lifting and sluing as it was done using a generator and hydraulic power instead of the 'armstrong' method.  But plenty of smaller cripple sidings simply carried on with manual jacks until changes in traffic patterns did away with them.

 

The first ever re-railing I saw up close, and had exlained t me as it was done, wasa Mk 1 x cach with one bogie derailr ed alinside a station latform.  It wad lifted by two hand worked jacks standing on traverses plates with the traverse plates on a bit of steel sitting on a pile of timber packing.  Jack it up then use another pair of hand worked jacks yo move the traverse plates until those jacks were fully extended then move the jacks to continue the traverse, then finally lower the two lifting jacks to  get the wheels back where they belonged.    So two jacks - with  proper packing - could effectively lift getting on for half the weight of a Mk 1 coach.  Lifting an empty wagon to change a wheelset was a doddle compared with that.

 

One night I watched a very old GWR hand crane used to lift a loaded Grampus, or similar,  wagon to replace everything below the sideframes on one side at one end - 'W' iron,  axlebox, ,etc onthat side plus a new wheelset.  The biggest problem was getting the crane to the site as its own bearings were a bit dodgy.  You could do an awful lot with hand worked gear

[Will Crompton]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Evn as late as the 1970s (and later in many places) cost was an im portant element.  Thus if something simple and inexpensive could do the job then that is what was used - hence the widespread use of manually worked jacks and plenty of timber packing.  

 

Once the MFD hydraiulic jacks came on the scene the main thing they did was reduce a lot of the physical effort and speed up lifting and sluing as it was done using a generator and hydraulic power instead of the 'armstrong' method.  But plenty of smaller cripple sidings simply carried on with manual jacks until changes in traffic patterns did away with them.

 

The first ever re-railing I saw up close, and had exlained t me as it was done, wasa Mk 1 x cach with one bogie derailr ed alinside a station latform.  It wad lifted by two hand worked jacks standing on traverses plates with the traverse plates on a bit of steel sitting on a pile of timber packing.  Jack it up then use another pair of hand worked jacks yo move the traverse plates until those jacks were fully extended then move the jacks to continue the traverse, then finally lower the two lifting jacks to  get the wheels back where they belonged.    So two jacks - with  proper packing - could effectively lift getting on for half the weight of a Mk 1 coach.  Lifting an empty wagon to change a wheelset was a doddle compared with that.

 

One night I watched a very old GWR hand crane used to lift a loaded Grampus, or similar,  wagon to replace everything below the sideframes on one side at one end - 'W' iron,  axlebox, ,etc onthat side plus a new wheelset.  The biggest problem was getting the crane to the site as its own bearings were a bit dodgy.  You could do an awful lot with hand worked gear

Many, many thanks, this is really helpful. I am hoping to try my hand at an n-gauge shunting layout based around a small C and W facility so details like this are priceless. As luck would have it the next RTR items from the N Gauge society are planned to be small rail mounted cranes (Cowan and Sheldon 6.5 ton and 10 ton cranes).

[Will Crompton]

On 20/01/2024 at 16:12, The Stationmaster said:

Evn as late as the 1970s (and later in many places) cost was an im portant element.  Thus if something simple and inexpensive could do the job then that is what was used - hence the widespread use of manually worked jacks and plenty of timber packing.  

 

Once the MFD hydraiulic jacks came on the scene the main thing they did was reduce a lot of the physical effort and speed up lifting and sluing as it was done using a generator and hydraulic power instead of the 'armstrong' method.  But plenty of smaller cripple sidings simply carried on with manual jacks until changes in traffic patterns did away with them.

 

The first ever re-railing I saw up close, and had exlained t me as it was done, wasa Mk 1 x cach with one bogie derailr ed alinside a station latform.  It wad lifted by two hand worked jacks standing on traverses plates with the traverse plates on a bit of steel sitting on a pile of timber packing.  Jack it up then use another pair of hand worked jacks yo move the traverse plates until those jacks were fully extended then move the jacks to continue the traverse, then finally lower the two lifting jacks to  get the wheels back where they belonged.    So two jacks - with  proper packing - could effectively lift getting on for half the weight of a Mk 1 coach.  Lifting an empty wagon to change a wheelset was a doddle compared with that.

 

One night I watched a very old GWR hand crane used to lift a loaded Grampus, or similar,  wagon to replace everything below the sideframes on one side at one end - 'W' iron,  axlebox, ,etc onthat side plus a new wheelset.  The biggest problem was getting the crane to the site as its own bearings were a bit dodgy.  You could do an awful lot with hand worked gear

I've just started looking for pictures of jacks being used for lifting railway vehicles in the 1970s and 1980s and came across a nice sequence of Peak D18 being rerailed at Hotchley Hill in 1971 very much as you describe above using lifting jacks and traversing jacks. It's on page 899 of Dave F's wonderful RMweb thread of his and his father's railway photographs.

 

 

Edited January 23 by Will Crompton
Typo, plus clarification of date and location.

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, Will Crompton said:

I've just started looking for pictures of jacks being used for lifting railway vehicles in the 1970s and 1980s and came across a nice sequence of Peak D18 being rerailed at Hotchley Hill in 1971 very much as you describe above using lifting jacks and traversing jacks. It's on page 899 of Dave F's wonderful RMweb thread of his and his father's railway photographs.

 

 

Those are the MFD power hydraulic operated jacks - larger diameter than the earlier had pumped jacks.

[Will Crompton]

22 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Those are the MFD power hydraulic operated jacks - larger diameter than the earlier had pumped jacks.

It seems they are still being produced in modern forms.

https://www.worlifts.co.uk/rail/mfd-re-railing-equipment/

 

[Will Crompton]

On 19/01/2024 at 21:21, Stoke West said:

Coton Hill had an overhead gantry hoist

I haven't managed to track down a picture of the gantry hoist at Coton Hill but I have found this on Steve Clement's Flickr site of a Cowans and Sheldon 6.5 ton crane used to change wheelsets there back in the day.

 

[craneman]

The famous crane maker of Carlisle was Cowans Sheldon, not Cowans and Sheldon.

[Will Crompton]

14 hours ago, craneman said:

The famous crane maker of Carlisle was Cowans Sheldon, not Cowans and Sheldon.

Thanks for the clarification. I plead the fifth amendment and the caption on Flickr!😞

[Will Crompton]

From Flickr, a road crane being used  to lift a wagon at Moreton Park taken by Jamerail in December 2013.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

On 20/01/2024 at 16:12, The Stationmaster said:

You could do an awful lot with hand worked gear

And you still can, as some preservation groups have to do, lacking the fancy modern gizmos.  Of course they rely on having old school volunteers to explain it to the youngsters, but they can quickly pick it up.  Retention of knowledge and skills is critical to the continued ability of preserved lines to keep the old stuff running.

[doilum]

On 23/01/2024 at 19:56, Will Crompton said:

I haven't managed to track down a picture of the gantry hoist at Coton Hill but I have found this on Steve Clement's Flickr site of a Cowans and Sheldon 6.5 ton crane used to change wheelsets there back in the day.

 

Is that a Triang repaint?

[Will Crompton]

On 19/01/2024 at 21:21, Stoke West said:

Coton Hill had an overhead gantry hoist

I found a picture (by Jamerail on Flickr) with the gantry hoist in the background.

"Ex LMS 25t Lowmac, DM700723, now coded XLV, is the end wagon of a Long Welded Train in Coton Hill yard, Shrewsbury, 9th July 1985."

[ess1uk]

I’ve now got a proper use for my lowmac and Cowans Sheldon crane 🙂