I was wondering if someone could tell me about what a jib crane was used for and where it would have been used on a RR. Thanks.
Tom
Hi Tom,
It’s my understanding that jib cranes were made in many types and tonnages. One could find a large jib crane working in a granite quarry, to raise the massive 20 ton blocks out of the quarry. You could also find them along side the main line at a factory or a shipping ramp.
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
Patrick,
Thanks for the info. Would you know where I could find a picture of one along a mainline, as you described? I bought and put together the Tichy Jib crane
and I’m trying to figure out where I should/could place it?
Tom
Tom,
You could use it at a locomotive shop,scrap yard or a shipping ramp beside a larger crane. Walthers produces a shipping container crane and if I’m not mistaken, in their advertisement …they show a jib crane working beside the larger crane. It looked to be a neat looking scene.
Patrick
Depending on your time period, one may also show up on the loading platform of a team track.
That style of crane can be used anywhere that moderately heavy (up to about 5000#) items have to be lifted into or out of gons. Logical items: crated or uncrated machinery, small logs, stone blocks, wheel sets…
I saw a crane of similar size, but much higher capacity, on a concrete platform at car floor height. It was used to move parts of hydroelectric machinery from “standard” (42") gauge cars to the 2’6" gauge cars that ran up the Kurobe Gorge to the several power plants located along the river.
That narrow gauge line had bridges that could have carried Big Boy, and tunnels far wider and higher than required by the miniscule rolling stock in use today.
Chuck
They were often used at RIP tracks to lift wheelsets and trucks and other heavy items used for car repairs. I saw a photo in Trains once using a jib crane to install a door on a boxcar.
There was also a shot of one used at a railroad freight house to lift large crates on and off trucks & flatcars.
Roger
Tom,
I need someone to educate me about cranes. If the one you posted a picture of is a jib crane, then what is the one shown below?
I honestly don’t know the right name for it, but there were plenty around the system I grew up with. They were used for lifting cargo on to and off goods wagons.
Pretty well every goods yard had one of these or what I think is called a gantry crane. One where a sort of trolley with a winch to lift things runs along a beam to transfer cargo from a rail wagon to a truck.
Someone who knows cranes should educate me.
Those photos would be copyright, but the guy who owns them is an enthusiast so hope he does not mind. He has some cool pics. Here is his site. http://www.ardp.net/ Buy some of his pics.[:D]
John, speaking only in regard to the cranes you have posted pictures of, different editions of the NSWGR Goods & Coaching Instruction Book refer to them as pillar or pedestal cranes, and the other type you mention as gantry or portal cranes. No doubt other railway systems used different terminology to describe similar cranes.
Cheers,
Mark.
(PS: good on yer for plugging Keiran’s website! [:)] )
I used to have a riggers license 20 years ago and acording to the course and training manuals a jib was an extension to a crane boom. sometimes called a flying jib or swinging jib depending on how it was joined. The pics on the third post is a pilar crane. When the jib is used for longer reach it lowers the cranes capacity . A good example of a jib is the lattice type structure on the side of the boom of a truck crane.
Pillar cranes like the ones in the photos were common in Queensland and many other places during the steam era. They were situated near the freight shed and commonly on the end of a platform which could be wood, dirt or concrete. I have seen them lift all types of freight from agricultural machinery like disc ploughs, crates, drums, bundled timber and wool bales. With a capacity of between 2 and 5 Tons they would be used to lift freight to and from trucks, the platform and flat cars and drop-side gons.
Gantry cranes straddled the load and as you decribed had a trolley that generally moved across the gantry beams and sometimes the whole gantry moves parallel to the track or the road. These style of cranes were used for narrow/standard gauge transfers and in more recent times shifting shipping containers between trucks and flat cars.
A couple other types of interesting cranes are stiff leg derricks and log loaders
Darren
Thanks for the input everyone. The info has been very helpful.
Tom