Hello I was wondering how was the boiler heated? Wood,coal,oil ? I was looking though some photos and seen what look like split wood on the boom car it was stacked like it was waiting to be burned. I have a Tichy 120 ton steam crane and was thinking if I should add some wood or coal to the boom car ? Thanks Frank
I wouldn’t think any of the steam wreckers after 1900 would have been wood fired , most would have been coal fired although oilfiring could also be possible.
To my knowledge the boom car was used only for supporting the wrecker boom and work equipment,cribbing , chain ,tools etc. You could have a tender for water and fuel on the one end and the boom car on the other.
Coal and Water were typically provided by a steam locomotive tender.
The crane would have ben fueled by whatever the engines were fueled with. The crane has a fuel bunker and water tank inside the cab. It uses a relatively small boiler so there is room inside the cab for the fuel and water. Sometimes they wrecker outfit had a secondhand steam tender for fuel and water (water especially). The wood on the boom car is probably “blocks”. A combination of hardwood peices about 2 ft long and 10-12 in wide, coming in both 2" and 4’ thicknesses. They also used “wedges” which are oak 4X4’S cut on a diagonal. They are used support the derailed wheels until they get close enough to the rails to get on the rerail frogs. They are also put under the outriggers to provide a footing for them.
Cranes were usually at the head end of a wreck train. They did not have any car in front of them, so that they would have unimpeded access to the wreck site in order to do their work. The boom car would be right behind them in the train.
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Hello thanks everyone for the info. I didn’t think it would need a tender full of coal and I didn’t even think of the water. But it makes sense to get the water/coal from the loco. Thanks and have a nice day Frank
Hello Pasmith that looks great. You posted that while I was typeing my first post. I have to say that is the first photo I seen with a crane and tender. Maybe if the crane is used alot it might be better to have tender. Can anyone point me to some good sites so I can look into this some more? Thanks Frank
Once into the diesel era a lot of steam cranes were switched to oil-fired. More modern ones were converted to diesel or replaced with a diesel crane.
–Randy
My model is freelance ( At least in part) and I do not have a photo of a prototype steam crane with a tender. However, a logging historian once told me that in logging, there is a prototype for everything. The prototype for the tender is the tender from Weed Logging Co. 2-8-0 No 3. Controlling stock in the Weed Lumber Co was purchased by Long -Bell in the early 1900’s. Long-Bell used several Ohio 25 ton steam cranes throughout their facilities in the Pacific North West. In 1956, Long-Bell was acquired by International Paper . This photo shows one of their cranes that was donated by IP to Camp 18 In Oregon. I ran across this crane at camp 18 six months after I made my kit bashed crane and was happy when I found my kit bashed crane to be quite accurate in detail.
Peter Smith, Memphis
