Cranes in use at railroad museums

John T · **Joined:** Sun Sep 14, 2014 5:05 pm **Posts:** 1270

M Secco, I can only assume IRM stands for Illinois Railway Museum. How about a list of the twelve cranes? My list for them only has ten.

Mount Royal · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2015 9:10 pm

Railroad Museum of New England has a crane that sees occasional service in work trains doing everything from laying track to ditching with a clam shell. This photo comes from the RMNE website. Visit http://www.rmne.org/about/roster/index.php#work for more information on this piece of equipment.

M Secco · **Joined:** Sun May 12, 2013 2:46 pm **Posts:** 245

John T.
Off the top of my head they are , 1. X-4 Chicago electric ; 2.TMER&L Industrial electric ; 3.C&WI Koehring crawler ; 4. Bay City truck ; 5. C&WI 100 ton Industrial wrecker ; 6. C&NW BE 160 ton wrecker ; 7. ComEd IBH model 30 DE ; 8. C&NW/UP Ohio model 300 ; 9. DM&IR Burro model 30 ; 10. IC Burro model 30 ; 11. Amtrac ? Burro model 50 ; 12. Burro model 40 off property, leased out? ; 13.*C&NW pile driver .

* Though not a "crane" it still set caps and stringers onto the piles with its whip line.

How's this NICK K. ?

larry123 · **Joined:** Tue Dec 31, 2013 5:56 pm **Posts:** 29

The Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad at Abilene KS has a Industrial Brownhoist crane that they use from time to time.
It is a model 5 with a 25 ton weight rating. It was made in 1949 with a cat engine.
It runs good and it was used this spring for track repair and last year for bridge repair.

Larry Lovejoy · **Posted:** Sun Jun 07, 2015 12:49 pm

David H. Hamley wrote:

Pennsylvania Trolley Museum has in use Pittsburgh Railways 1929 Difco "crane on a flatcar" M283. This crane is used in all phases of museum operations, maintenance, and restoration.

And sometimes we use M283 for work that's tangential to our operations. The attached photo by Scott Becker shows M283 distributing pipe for a force main sewer that's been built along our tracks. The contractor's work plan had him distributing these pipes one-at-a-time using a small bobcat, which would have had him uncomfortably close to our tracks for a week. So, we did some horsetrading and got all of his pipe distributed in less than four hours.

Related to another thread's topic, we coordinated with the sewer authority through the entire design and construction process plus we were compensated for our time. While the utility easements in many cases predate the Museum, we have fee simple title to most of the underlying real estate, and have made very clear to both public and private utilities that they need to coordinate with us. They would often bluster at first, but I simply ask them to (1) pretend that our name is "Norfolk Southern" instead of Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and (2) imagine how far their blustering would get them with NS. After about 10 seconds of contemplating that scenario, they typically fall right into line. Relationships are very cordial thereafter.

/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

Thanks for the response and especially the photos. Good to see that cranes are being put to good use by the various organizations.

Les

Brian Norden · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2015 12:24 am

Orange Empire Ry Museum not only has the Los Angeles Railway crane mentioned by Bob Davis, but also has an ex-Santa Fe burro crane complete with its "mother car" for transporting.

Several years ago the Burro crane on its flat car did leave the property for a off-site track removal project.

From the OERM webpage ATSF Burro Crane 749 and Flatcar:

Here is the webpage for the LARY derrick: LARy 9225

joe6167 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2015 1:20 am

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2015 10:44 am

Interestingly, a weekend ago I was watching NS personnel load coal into 611 at Manassas using a compact "Bobcat" loader rolling around inside the gondola of coal on the adjacent track. I happen to mention "So now they use that set-up instead of a Burro crane?"

A railroad employee within earshot said "Even if we could find a Burro, no one around knows how to run one any more."

I'm uncertain if he was serious or facetious.

Alan Maples · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2015 11:57 am

Burro cranes have been rapidly disappearing from Norfolk Southern, if not most class 1 railroads. They are a nuisance to move around and hydraulic hi-rail boom trucks can do almost everything a light self propelled crane could do, safer and with a lot more flexibility.

We got rid of ours for mostly the same reasons - it was always in the way and the only person who knew how to operate it retired.

Alan Maples
Everett Railroad

M Secco · **Joined:** Sun May 12, 2013 2:46 pm **Posts:** 245

You can't push a 100 ton ballast car with a hyrail boom truck or set a track panel or ditch along the right of way while throwing the the mud 30+ feet from the track. You can't fill two air dumps ,one on both ends of you with riprap and deliver them miles away and unload or dump them with a boom truck. You can't load or distribute while traveling down the tracks 100 rails (that's about 75 tons) from a flat car or gondola with a boom truck . Sometimes a Burro, American , Ohio ,Little Giant etc. would have cars on both ends to load or unload. Gons can hold 250 to 400+ ties. Boom trucks maybe 50ish . Don't get me wrong hyrail boom trucks with their magnet , bucket , tie bucket , rail tongs and road ability are very handy . Any museum or short line that can afford one is lucky . Skill level for operating a boom truck is low compared to operating a crane. That is why the cranes are disappearing at such a fast rate on class 1 roads as all the 1970 hired employees are retiring while few new hires are being trained on cranes. When you take your Wolf Hound for a walk you'll need a different baggy than you had for the Chihuahua. Enough said.

Howard P. · **Posted:** Thu Jun 18, 2015 8:49 am

"LIKE" button for M Secco's post!!!!

Howard P.

crij · **Joined:** Sun Aug 22, 2004 12:15 am **Posts:** 585

M Secco,
I would have to disagree with you on your last post, when RailAmerica owned the New England Central their MoW Contractor used a Brandt Truck (4 axle flatbed highway diesel truck) to pull 3 gondolas of ties with an excavator riding on the ties a couple of times.
http://www.brandt.ca/Divisions/RoadRail ... t=Industry
Rich C.

M Secco · **Joined:** Sun May 12, 2013 2:46 pm **Posts:** 245

OK , here we go . There will always be different ways of doing the same job. Some ways can be "6 to 1 or half dozen to another". Other ways may run to extremes from each other. You also have to look at safety , timeliness ,cost and quality for the company and for some "OT"is always a deciding factor. Railroaders of all crafts know what I'm talking about. Contractor employees have little loyalty to the railroad they're working on at the time. The poor souls are so under paid it's not funny. Turnover is high. Brandt trucks can only do one thing , move a good number of railroad cars at a good clip and that requires one driver. Cat, Deere , etc. tie unloaders are handy especially when sidings are few and far between , you can't switch around cars without a switch . These require one operator. You also need one foreman or helper to point were the ties need to be dropped to the tie unloader operator. Even the newest most modern tie unloader operator cab does not allow you to see the ground near the gons side. Now let's see what we have here. We got three "3" people and two "2"machines to do the same job as one "1" rail bound crane and one"1"operator. In reality a Brandt / tie distribution gang would have a support hyrail truck with fuel and hydraulic oil and some basic parts . On the UP we would sometimes even have two tie unloaders working on top of the gons. The UPs Brandt trucks always seemed to being going through transmissions. There were several times I had to rescue a Brandt with its 5 to 9 cars with two unloaders and keep the whole shebang moving with my American model 5030 locomotive crane in the work window we were given on the main line. Once I even picked up a new tie unloader back off the main from were it fell off a coal gon that was in tie service . The managers on the scene had never seen a crane pick one up before.

M Secco · **Joined:** Sun May 12, 2013 2:46 pm **Posts:** 245

To finish the above story the tall ex-coal gondola had been emptied of ties and with the heavy tie unloader walking along its top made for a very unstable situation. When I heard on the company radio that it tipped over I drove to the site ( Nelson ILL. on the UP) to take a look . The coal gon was on its side with the pretty new tie unloader on its side within about 7 feet of it. With no rail damage on the Controlled Siding . I was on my way home but I told the transportation supervisors my crane was around the corner on the same side and I could bring it here in about 15 minute and easily right the empty gon and then load the machine onto my flat and take them both in the clear with no rail damage being done. They said nah we already called Haulcher ,they'll be here in 8 hours. Next day they took me up on my offer a little to late . The side boom Cats turned over 150 feet of rail and they couldn't carry the tie unloader off the tracks without wrecking it. With a proper 4 way sling it was an easy pick for me onto one of my flatcars , coupled up to the gon and went into the clear. The track gang worked all day fixing the totally unnecessary track damage. The transportation supervisors could not vision their MOW employees as being skilled professionals . Our engineering supers new it but they were out ranked. A good crane operator can run circles around Brandt work trains and they know it too. FYI Our Burros and locomotive cranes always had a large fuel tank on our boom idler flats along with a clamshell bucket ,tie bucket (mine picked 35 with 1 bite), magnet ,CWR threader , lift slings etc. Now back to my lawn.