So, as you have hopefully gathered already, I have one of those sets, and I want to know if they have anything close to a prototype. Otherwise, to ebay they go. The boom tender is numbered 12277, and the crane car is numbered 23158. The UP yellow looks a bit cheesy (pardon the pun) so that is already a bad sign. I do want to try this though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXpvp5mIXvU either with the bachmann or an AHM model lettered for santa fe that I have too.
From what I could find, it looks like what you have may be a fairly old model - like from the 1980’s - 1990’s? The animation in the link is pretty cool.
I think the Bachmann crane and tender are sort of ‘generic’ models; many railroads had similar equipment since many railroads bought from the same crane manufacturers.
I did find one picture from 2005 of a UP crane that’s not all that different…
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/128302/
and one video from 2013…
here is a link to a heavy crane in the 90’s http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/up/up900310bk.jpg and from what i can tell most of there mw equipment lettered in the 90***** series.
This is one in the Ogden RR museum
The Bachmann model is a steam crane which dates it to pre-1990’s generally and pre-1980’s for the UP.
It is also VERY different from this crane :
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/128302/
The Bachman crane is a wrecking crane, that is operated by the mechanical department (NOT the MofW) and primarily used to handle cars and locomotives. The Railpictures crane is a bridge crane operated by the engineering dept. (the MofW) and is used to handle pile drivers and build bridges and culverts. It is NOT used to rerail cars. It doesn’t have the capacity or the equipment to facilitate picking up cars.
The boom car for the Bachmann model is a pretty rough fabrication and wouldn’t be typical of any boom car on the UP after WW2 (at best). The UP tended to paint wrecking cranes either aluminum, the chromate green, back or a dark green. I can’t recall any UP wrecker ever being yellow. Most of the bridge cranes and Burro Cranes (an even smaller MofW crane) were yellow. CNW wreckers were yellow, so a post merger, ex-CNW wrecker could have been lettered for UP with CNW yellow paint.
Most boom cars were 53’6" flat cars or cut down 60-70 ft baggage car frames with tool boxes on them. Most did not have a building on them because it made them difficult to use.
We had one of those (it might have been that one) at N Little Rock, AR. We took it out to the a siding just south of Little Rock to rerail a derailed car. The outfit was the wrecker, a boom car, and a crew car that was an old passenger car for the carmen to ride (it also had a section with bunk beds and kitchen area).
We no sooner set up, got the outriggers blocked up, ran cables around the car (a boxcar of paper) and picked it up when the main hydraulic hose burst (oil spraying out the back of the crane). That put us dead in the water. We couldn’t raise the car, we couldn’t lower the car, we couldn’t move the crane, we couldn’t move the boom. I had to explain to the Superintendent why we were going to have the main track blocked for about 3 hours more than we planned. He was not happy. The foreman had to drive back into Little Rock and have a new hydraulic hose made, replace the busted one, refill the oil and then start it back up. Not a fun day.
So if I repaint it, I can get a more modern and accurate model, right? I found two more pics that are what I am going to repaint this sucker for: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4602300
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4602299
Plus this one already posted: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/up/up900310bk.jpg
Question is, where can I get those colors? I would paint it based on the pictures where the paint isnt faded. Is the roof white or silver? I can’t tell.
Aluminum. As are the bearing box covers.
The green was a dark green with bluer rather than olive cast. Something like Tru-Color Reading green or Safety green. Southern or MKT green seem too yellow.
Technically the Bachmann model is a steam crane and the prototype is a diesel crane. To make the Bachmann model match you would have to cut off the smoke stake flush with the roof. Cut a new roof panel from styrene or shim brass and glue it to the roof to cover the hole. I think there was an exhaust muffler on the back of the cab for the diesel, then there are the air intake, radiator screens on the sides of the cab.
I have already cut that off flush, and I have the other details on my radar. Thanks for the paint suggestions. I already have some of them, so I can get started.
Overland Models has produced a number of nice UP wrecking cranes in HO. Photos of the models and their details might help to bring your model closer to a prototype.
Regards, Volker
All the CNW wreckers I remember seeing were black. Like in this linked picture.
www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/displayimage.php?album=9&pid=1460#top_display_media
I was fortunate(?) to see them work 3 or 4 derailments in the late 1970s in Iowa. I think 1978 or 79 was the last time I saw one. After that date, it seems contract crews (Hulcher) were the norm for clean up in my area.
Jeff
I probably should have said “… some are yellow…”. Wreckers may be different colors depending on era and their lineage. Most UP wreckers were silver, but the one being modeled was green. Most MP wreckers were black at one time.
After getting some nice new exacto blades, I can make more progress. I am painting the aluminum parts now, and the kadees are installed. However, they are way too high. Will have to find a way to lower the pockets.
Try using an overset Kadee coupler, like #22, they will lower the coupler about 1/2 the height of the head, without having to hack anything apart.
Kadee also makes these:
If you compare the ends of the basic body of the Athearn crane:
and the Bachmann:
you can see that the Athearn end is kind of “filled up”, while the Bachmann has a whole lot of emptiness. You might want to incorporate closing the space up with your coupler mounting.
Ed
I dunno if this one is Bachmann or perhaps Model Power, but the ends were pretty much closed-in when I got it off the “used” table at the LHS for a couple of bucks.
If I’m not mistaken (or mis-remembering) it represented a diesel-powered crane, which I back-dated to steam to better fit into my late '30s-era layout. Adding the stack and service platforms for coal and water pretty-much took care of that, and I added a few grabirons, too.
Wayne
Wayne,
That is an interesting crane. I can’t trace its heritage. There are many “non-fits”.
Ed
Ed, luckily, I have a memory like a steel trap…well-rusted, unfortunately. [:-^]
Your observation prompted me to get that crane out, and I suspect I probably saw, when I was making the modifications, the same thing I read just a few moments ago: “MADE IN AUSTRIA”. There’s nothing other than that, but I suspect that it was made by Roco, if not marketed by them, too.
Wayne
All the steam cranes I met that were not in a museum had an ex-steam engine tender with them for fuel and water. A crane could be at a wreck and operating for days, so they would need fuel and water to last that time.