Needs big muscles!
Old and rusty but so may we be if we were 139 years old, this Rasomes and Rapiers hand operated rail crane was built in London in 1885. It was one of six apparently sent to Townsville, then the headquarters of the partially built western heading Great Northern Railway. In those days, it would be many years before the line as it was would be connected to Rockhampton and more so, Brisbane in the south.
This crane was used around Cloncurry where it was photographed at the Cloncurry Unearthed Visitor Info Centre and Museum. It was used for minor derailments, luckily most locomotives and rollingstock were a lot lighter and smaller in those days, for lifting items like small bridge girders which were all mostly hardwood and for lifting wagons for bogie and wheel maintenance at outlying depots. It was written off and donated by Queensland Railways to the then museum in 1972 which at the time also contained several other items including a steam locomotive. It is long scrapped.
Interesting to note on the left hand end, the grey thing is a diesel locomotive cow catcher (or sometimes called a pilot). I wonder if it came from locomotive 1624 that was badly damaged in an accident with another locomotive in Cloncurry in 1982 and subsequently written off the books and scrapped, being the first member of the class to go. It is also interesting to note all the cogs and wheels or gears on the crane to provide mechanical advantage without which hand cranking a crane like this would have been impossible. A low wagon would also have been semi-permanently coupled on the RH end under the jib to allow it to be hauled from that direction.
Needs big muscles!
Old and rusty but so may we be if we were 139 years old, this Rasomes and Rapiers hand operated rail crane was built in London in 1885. It was one of six apparently sent to Townsville, then the headquarters of the partially built western heading Great Northern Railway. In those days, it would be many years before the line as it was would be connected to Rockhampton and more so, Brisbane in the south.
This crane was used around Cloncurry where it was photographed at the Cloncurry Unearthed Visitor Info Centre and Museum. It was used for minor derailments, luckily most locomotives and rollingstock were a lot lighter and smaller in those days, for lifting items like small bridge girders which were all mostly hardwood and for lifting wagons for bogie and wheel maintenance at outlying depots. It was written off and donated by Queensland Railways to the then museum in 1972 which at the time also contained several other items including a steam locomotive. It is long scrapped.
Interesting to note on the left hand end, the grey thing is a diesel locomotive cow catcher (or sometimes called a pilot). I wonder if it came from locomotive 1624 that was badly damaged in an accident with another locomotive in Cloncurry in 1982 and subsequently written off the books and scrapped, being the first member of the class to go. It is also interesting to note all the cogs and wheels or gears on the crane to provide mechanical advantage without which hand cranking a crane like this would have been impossible. A low wagon would also have been semi-permanently coupled on the RH end under the jib to allow it to be hauled from that direction.