Has anyone out there built the Vulcan Manufacturing Company (Walthers kit) in conjunction with the (Walthers) overhead traveling crane?
I am trying to figure out where a spur track to that industry should go and thus I need to figure out how I will position the crane with respect to the factory. What I am thinking now is to place the crane in the back or behind the (Vulcan) factory with a spur track running under the crane. (The long dimension of the crane would trend in the same direction as the long dimension of the factory). The spur track would be not centered underneath the crane so as to allow roon for a truck or something to receive the load off a freight car.
So, if anyone has built this model before or has expertise in the layout of a steel fabricating plant such as this, I would really appreciate your input.
The funny thing about this is there was a steel fabricating plant in my hometown that was named Vulcan Manufacturing and looks very mcuh like the Walthers model. I think it’s gone now, I guess I should have paid more attention to it 40 years ago or so.
Vulcan manufacturing if I’m not mistaken, you can install the crane at either end of the structure. I don’t have this kit ,but I’ve seen fellow modelers do this very same thing.
I’ll break down one day and buy this kit, it is a awsome looking structure. Even more so when you add a second run of the bridge rails,…having two feet of crane rails, instead of one foot.
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
I have the crane kit and laid it out both ways (track perpendicular and parallel to crane rails) - It will work either way.
Operationally the two schemes are different. Let’s say you are loading/unloading gondolas. With the track parallel to the crane rails you have a limited space for which to put the loads, either beside the car or off the end. There is an advantage in that with two cranes on the same track you can lift the long loads gons are known for. (Typically it is too dangerous to lift long things from a single point.)
If the tracks go transversely you have a nice “laydown yard” where things can be arranged in rows beside the track. For example, coils go right beside the tracks, plates about 20 feet over, beams 20 feet over from that. The disadvantage is that you can’t lift a load longer than the crane span, which is shorter than most mill gondolas. This could be remedied by scratching a longer crane, I suppose. Alternatively you could put two cranes back to back with scratched columns supporting the paired rails.
That being said, there are two travelling cranes near here and they are both arranged such that one crane rail is against the side of a building along its who
There are (were) several tracks where the yellow line is, and the line shows the main axis of tracks going through the complex. The roads with the large curves run to the outside of the curves between the switching track and the various sidings.
