What type of railroad crane was used during the ww2. In a wartime consist would it be diesel, or steam. If anyone can provide links to a diagram or blueprint of one I'd appreciate it. Want to add one to an end of the war consist named, "The Last Train From The proving Ground".

Here's a 90 ton steam crane called "Kranwagen 059 Ardelt 90 t" :



More pics here :
http://www.eisenbahndienstfahrzeuge.de/kranwagen/kran_ardelt/kran-ardelt-90t/30809740038-3-bb-Df6113036.jpg

Here's a drawing :



A 75 ton crane :

http://www.eisenbahndienstfahrzeuge.de/kranwagen/kran_ardelt/kran-ardelt_75t/kran-ardelt_75t.htm

A 15 ton crane :

http://www.eisenbahndienstfahrzeuge.de/kranwagen/kran-beck_henkel/kran-beck_henkel-15t/kran-beck_henkel-15t.htm

You'll find many more types here :

http://www.eisenbahndienstfahrzeuge.de/

Just select "K" on the top right of the page, and then "Kranwagen" in the menu on the right...


H.P.

Hi Richard,

Are you looking for railroad wreckers(wrecking cranes) or lighter duty cranes? US railroads had many steam wreckers during WWII, but some were Diesel and some were electric, double ended (cranes on each end) and self propelled. Look up steam railroad wreckers on Google and you'll find a lot of classic photos.

Good luck with your searching,

Dick

Richard,

Due to the many tasks as well as the large area, the German Railroad Cie, Deutsche Reichsbahn, covered, you may find various types. From the simple hand cranes ( Hand Kran ) to the huge 90 tons crane above (which was acompanied by two flat cars ( so called Begleitwagen ) and a car for the counter weights, next to a box car and a personel car ).
So, pls., do use Google with Deutsche Reichsbahn and Eisenbahnkraene.

I'm a bit confused by your use of the term "consist". Cranes are only dispatched in special work trains to perform a specific task at a given location; this is true for any country, at any time in railroad history. They were not added to ordinary trains on a "just-in-case" basis. It may or may not be appropriate for your train based on the details of the scenario.

Besides the large crane that Frenchy found, the Faun LK5 rail/road crane was much more common (probably considered "standard"), and could haul its own short "train". I'll add two images of it performing wartime tasks.

Hi Charles

I should have guessed you would mention the FAUN

I've just noticed I've given a wrong link to the 90 ton crane pics. Here's the correct one :

http://www.eisenbahndienstfahrzeuge.de/kranwagen/kran_ardelt/kran-ardelt-90t/kran-krupp-ardelt-90t.htm

Only four of these were built...

H.P.

and for a model impression of the complete crane:

http://www.fleischmann.de/de/product/80612-0-0-25-1-0-0-003001/products.html

Hi Frenchy -

Was there any doubt in your military mind?

This is from an earlier era, but I really like the looks of it. I had initially assumed it was steam powered, but then realized it lacked the large smokestack I would have expected.





This next image is a bit OT, but it does involve a crane and a railroad. That's an impressive array of heavy equipment they have on site. You have to wonder if it might have been cheaper to use a large heli than bring that crane to a remote site like this; perhaps the engine weight is beyond the lift capacity of even the largest industrial helis.

The term (consist) in this context would denote a group of cars lashed up for a special purpose, i.e. wrecking, or, maintenance of way. My slim research has found that for wrecking and heavy lifts the D.R. used an SSt. 662 six axle crane. Are any of these designated as such?. Some of these look too modern to have been used during wartime. Thanks to all great images.

Richard - In my experience, consist is mostly used in reference to a regularly scheduled train (or locomotive set) of consistent elements, although I agree that it could apply to any train.

Your original request mentioned "The Last Train From The proving Ground". I have no idea just what you plan to place in this train, but my thought was that there wouldn't be a crane unless one had been stationed at the proving ground on a regular basis.

The title and your mention of "end of war" places this during the period of the German retreat, so "a group of cars lashed up for a special purpose, i.e. wrecking, or, maintenance of way" doesn't seem to apply - unless it was a Schienenwolf operation.

With the exception of the contemporary road crane recovering the CN engine from the canyon in my recent post, I believe all the cranes shown in the photos here were built or operated in the 1930's, so should be appropriate for wartime use.

Searching for "deutsche reichsbahn SSt 662 kran", I get no hits on the web or Google images. If you have a photo of this, could we see it?

It's not crystal clear just what you're referring to in the two questions below. I don't know if "these" relates to the "SSt. 662 six axle crane", or the photos that have been posted so far.

> Are any of these designated as such?.

> Some of these look too modern to have been used during wartime.

If you give us some specific info on your project, we might be able to help more.

Hi Jon

The unlucky Diesel pictured in your post looks like a GE Dash 9-44CW :



This beast weights about 425,000 lb (192,800 kilograms) and the world's heaviest lift helicopter, the Mil-26, can lift "only" 44,000 lbs...

According to the original caption, the one in the other picture is a "Benzin-Motor-Drehkrane"

Sorry for the digression Richard

H.P.

Sorry for the confusion Charles Too many threads and only one brain !

H.P.

O.K. Some of my terms are off but, here's my idea. I plan on a set of cars, a big BR locomotive and tender, a Leopold E5 Rail Gun, an 80t flat with a Tiger tank on it, and a Crane and tender car, and maybe a two turret armored car to bring up the rear. It will depict the last train out of Kumsdorf,sp, proving grounds trying to spirit out some big guns for the next Reich. Pure fantasy but, what if, it happened? All in 1/35th scale. Originally I wanted to do a Maus on one of its transports but that's too big a project for me. What do you think guys?

Wow! Sounds like someones gonna be very busy for a very long time. Hope you'll post some Pictures for us to see.
Jacob

As Jacob said, a large project, so I'd plan to do it over the long haul.

One benefit of the Faun LK5 is that there are two kits for it. Wespe produces a rather junky one, with poor instructions and zero info on the rigging. The better and more expensive one is by Elite Models in Germany:
http://tinyurl.com/q2bwc6v

One other possibility for you. There might have been a war-era crane produced in the 1:32 ("Gauge zero") model railroading scale in the past. The detail probably wouldn't be great, and you'd need to re-mount the crane on a 1:35 wagon. Any new products are unlikely to be the era you want, and possibly even more expensive than the Elite kit.

If you want to investigate, check German eBay using German search terms. However, many sellers there will only ship within Germany or the EuroZone, so you have to check to see if they'll ship to the U.S.

Just a little, beyond, yes.

Average diesel locomotive weights are in the range of 85-250 tons each. Not the whole train, just the locoomotove. Big buggers can tip in at over 400 tonnes.

The largest helicopter in the world, the Mi-26 can lift approximately 20-22 tons.

The much vaunted Sikorsky Skycrane can lift only 10 tons.

Helos just ain't ever gonna cut it.

Paul

Paul - Henri-Pierre had supplied this info earlier.

OK - so call me naive. I was coming at it from an "apparent logic" rather than "reality knowledge" viewpoint.