I have attached a few pictures of a small tie crane, I am looking for any information on how to operate it. It appears to have a mount to motorize the cable, while adjusting the boom height & length, as well as swinging the boom is a manual affair.

Any details on its operation, an appropriate motor for the cable, quirks to watch out for with this design, etc are greatly appreciated.

I can attempt provide additional pictures and information if needed.

Thanks in advance!

Pics

Hey I thought that looked familiar.. ;-)

I presume you have looked for a builder's plate and there isn't one. This cable arrangement appears to be an early attempt to build a mechanical tie inserter/extractor before hydraulic systems replaced them. Attached to the end of the cable over the pulley at the end of the boom would have been a loop which would fit over a knob on a shovel-like tool with a flat blade to support the end of a tie for insertion. The blade had an L-shaped vertical face with a welded handle extending behind it. An operator would guide the tie into place by holding the handle while the cable spooled in.
A set of tie tongs would replace the "shovel" when ties were being pulled out. It appears that a stop block (reaction bar) which the operator would manually drop vertically in a slot so the block would rest against the gauge face of the rail is missing. Any attempt to use the machine without the stop block would cause the wheels to be pulled over the rail.

It looks homemade. Something the railroad workers made themselves.

It's a Gandy tie inserter/tie extractor. I forget who made them but IIRC, they were produced in the 1950's as a "one man gandy dancer". Frequently used at industrial plants. Your's is missing the Briggs & Stratton gas engine, 12HP IIRC. The engine powered both the line on the boom and propelled the machine down the tracks, very s l o w l y....with a cone drive rubbing against a double-faced pulley. Push the cone one way to go forward, the opposite way to go reverse. The operation was fairly simple: Center the boom over the tie you want to change out, attach the rail clamps to keep the machine from tipping over, dig out the end of the tie and loosen up the crib around the tie, there was a tie clamp that grabbed the end of the tie, swing out the boom and lower the boom to the horizontal, attach the cable and, in theory, yank out the tie. To insert the new tie, dig out the other end of the crib and run the cable under the rails and attach the tie clamp to the new tie and drag it through under the rails. Works good on paper, field experience is slightly different. If your ballast is clean, the ties in decent shape, and the operator skilled, it probabaly worked pretty well. Otherwise, well, you could spend all day to change one tie (perhaps some guys wanted that!)
NJ Zinc in Palmerton, PA had a number of them, all beat up.
Rob

Here are several shots of similar machines working in my hometown of Hinsdale NY.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1913577
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1913578
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1913580

JR

Hey I think this may be it.

http://www.nordco.com/Media/Maintenance ... gGandy.pdf

Ok so we did find several manuals on Nordco's website for parts and the engine which is actually a 2 cylinder Wisconsin. But what they do not have is the operators manual. I contacted them but they did not have anything else.

The official name was a Nordco Gandy Snapper, The last one was built in 1962.

Does anyone know of any others in preservation or still in use?

And does anyone anyone happen to have a copy of the operators manual?

Thank you,