Industrial History: MoW: American Crane with Boom Car and Others

(Street View) (See also "big hooks.")

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Philip M. Goldstein created an album of 52 photos showing an Ohio doing pile driver work on the BNSF in 2019. (source, the comments include a couple of videos including one actually driving a pile)

BNSF used a RR crane to help with a trestle replacement

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Setting on a siding in North Baltimore, OH, which is on a former-B&O route, was a C&O crane. Note the crane is C&O, the flat car is CSXT, and the boom car has a Chessie System herald complete with the sleeping cat but the reporting marks are C&O.

20151101 5220

A comment on my comment in a posting:
JB Ward Pile driver, I had to repair one in the 90's.

(Facebooked)

Update:
Aaron Bryant posted three photos with the comment: "A few views of the N&W crane, and boom tender on the Dry Fork Branch, near Berwind, W.Va. Photos taken Dec. 16th, 2018."

Aaron Bryant posted ten photos with the comment: "This ole girl came into Richlands, Virginia, yesterday. I took several photos of it yesterday around 5 pm, but decided to go back this morning to get some in better light." Wrecker cranes have pretty much been replaced by sidewinders. But NS evidently still finds use for this crane because it looks like it has fresh paint and an NS reporting mark. Given the clamshell on the boom car, one of the uses must be dredging.

CSXT-960411 American Crane working on the flood-plain trestle of the CSX/L&N Ohio River Bridge.

Tom Barrows Flickr 2009 Photo, please click the link to see the work it is doing.

Tim Tupper posted
Crunch,bang
Greg MasGroup Admin trust me when they go over its in slow motion!Paul Schmidt One once went off the BN Wisconsin River bridge . Said Blackie, the operator, when a lady in a fishing boat snagged him......I was never so glad to see a woman in my life!
Chuck Kelley We lost 2 operator in crane accidents on the Powder River , knew and worked with both , and both could of been prevented I believe.Dan Carley I was operating a 70 ton American they took it to Galesburg Il fixed it up and sent it to Wyoming 1 or 2 months later the opr. Turned it over I heard on to some OTM and killed him on the power rive DivnDave Rooker I remember hearing about Blackie flipping his in the river..amazed he lived through it..Tom Kalnas Jr The company i work for i know of only 2 crane incidents...the first one the operator was given the wrong weights for the pick and the bridge timbers that the out riggers were on failed...the second was a pettibone traveling and suppesdly hit a cple low joints that derailed it...my experience operating our locomotive crane (American DEH 830) has suspension lock outs...traveling this way is not a good thing and likely to derail...and by the looks of this with the hi boom angle may be what happened...since it doesn't appear to be any work goin on...my 2 cents.Rick LeggettGroup Admin This incident was caused Tom Kalnas Jr by too low of a boom angle, while swinging a fairly lightweight skip box (with a few tools) to the low side of the curve/elevation.Tom Kalnas Jr I hate workin to low side of curves...even with proper boom angle it just feels unstable...Fred BainGroup Admin Some of northern Ontario's curves are 4 or 5 inches of elevation. Wicked to work on.Tom Kalnas Jr All our curves run between 2 to 6 inches of cross level...not fun some times.Frank Irvine Ok , I'll say my two cents worth again .... If you have read and understand the lift chart , you know the load weight , you know the cranes capacity , you know your crane radius , you know your boom angle ... How do you "Dump" a crane ?Paul Schmidt In the case of the accident I mentioned out on a bridge wind gusts were a factor but the thought that they would shut down for the day was overruled by someone.Dave Rooker I think clearing brush from under bridges answer your questions..its a bad situation at best especially in floods..Rick LeggettGroup Admin The same way Frank Irvine, you run off the end of the high side rail in a curve that has already been rolled out, waiting for the crane to lay in the new rail. Same operator...different year. DOH!

Rick Leggett commented on Tim's posting
And part of the 'discipline' I gave the uninjured operator for doing this, was sending him to one of the first classes at the BNSF Training Center at Overland Park, now National Academy of Railroad Sciences (NARS) with their new crane simulator.

Three Hocking Valley Tourist Railroad cranes

Their restored crane is a Burro

20170416 8501, cropped

A blue crane:

A brown crane:

Paul W. Faust posted

PRR wrecker crane sitting on a siding at Williams Grove Steam Association.
Infrared image / Nikon D3200 5990nm

© Paul W. Faust - Impressions-of-Light
Ken Hough Wreck service? Not construction? PRR had light weight cranes.Paul W. Faust I guess that boom is too long for a wrecker - not enough leverage for that work - I never thought about that.Jonathan Anschütz I was thinking this may have been an old Ma&Pa crane, as much of Williams Grove’s rolling stock has a Ma&Pa heritage; however, I found two sources that said the crane is from the Schmidt & Ault Paper Co in York, PA.

Ohio C/N 4537 25 tons Steam 12-30-46
Schmidt & Ault Paper Co. York, PA

Sources:http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/cranes/steamcranes02.htm https://www.farmcollector.com/.../the-show-at-williams-grove

Paul commented on his own post
[I wonder if Bucyrus made Ohio Locomotive Cranes or if the town had two crane companies.]

Mark Llanuza posted
Its 2005 at Barrington tower with small work train and caboose.
Craig Cloud What speed did J work

🚆 here allowed with crane serving as power?
Jim Barnes M of W equipment was restricted to a 25 mph maximum, however I would routinely travel at whatever speed the grade and tonnage being pulled would allow. There was no speedometer in the crane.
Michael Bachmann For a little history on Jim ' s crane, it came from the USS taconi mine in Minnesota. It had a sister crane that was sold to USS Steel in Gary. The taconi mine was getting rid of most of its rolling stock and moving to rubber tire trucks. I was told it was because of the grade coming out of the mine was getting to much for rail movement. Jim was sent up to look at it and the J bought it for about $250,000. It was worth about a million. It was a beast, 80 tonner, 4 traction motors, and weighed short of 300,000 lbs. Compared to what the M/W used before, 30 ton cranes, it was again was a beast. I watched Jim operate that crane numerous times with a skill unmatched by anyone I ever saw and I operated cranes for the J nearly 25 years. I witnessed that crane tie onto about a dozen dead locomotives in the south yard of Joliet and move them with ease. Jim could talk much more on that crane.
William O'Neal StringerWilliam and 2 others manage the membership, moderators, settings, and posts for Friends of The EJ&E RR. If a crew chose to "expedite" their move there was a lot of management that just "looked the other way." With that thought in place, if things should go wrong, derailing for instance, then you were still fully responsible. Before black boxes on engines, I was in the terminal building (the white house) in Joliet that also housed the dispatcher's office and I overheard the chief train dispatcher say, "I love it when they are helping me but I hate it when they are screwing me." He was referring to speeding trains and trains putt-putting along on overtime.
Richard Weber This crane and its operator Jim barnes was a life saver for the m of w. A lot of planning went into our jobs so all equipment and personnel handled each job safely and professionally. Miss all my fellow employees.

Eric Berg commented on a posting about an American crane
This is probably the one you remember Phil, shown at Shelby, Indiana in April of 1986.Phil Boldman Eric Berg no that is a burro crane. We used them all the time based out of Kankakee. The black one is much bigger but not as big as a big hook. The big American was used for big projects. Used it a lot on the Kankakee river bridges at Schneider and Shelby. American used a class a operator. Burro was a class b. Joe the operator from Kankakee ran both cranes but the bastards would never give him class a rights.Phil Boldman Eric Berg the reason it spent so much time at Shelby was log jams at the river bridge we would grab the logs with the clam bucket. Lift them over the bridge and release them on the other side. They would float onto Schneider where they would hang up on that bridge so we moved the crane to Schneider and repeat. Then the logs could float to ill.

John W. Coke posted
Penn Central
Gary Smith How many of these contraptions did a nose dive?
Robert Hamel An old rail aid, it was always neat to put the crane on the dollies,
[Unless they chain the crane to the dolly and the dolly can clamp the rails, this does seem rather unstable.]

Mark Llanuza posted
EJ&E work train at Munger Sterns Rd 2009

Mark Llanuza posted
Its 2009 were at Spaulding yard with work train

Gary Puke posted
North side of Chicago just off the Kennedy Expressway. 1/9/19.
Joe Fitzgerald

old CNW mainline
Dennis DeBruler It appears that side dozers made the big hooks obsolete, but that railroads still use the smaller cranes.
Bart Culbertson These cranes are used in the MOW track department for laying switches, rail, and track panels. The Bridge/Construction department will use these cranes to set concrete bridge spans, drive steel pipe pile and " H" Pile. These cranes are typically rated at 60 - 110ton depending on the cable diameter, boom length, the counter weighs and car body ballast. These cranes were never really used for heavy lifts like the very large Re-railing cranes used by the car departments.

Joe Dockrill posted a copy of Bill Rogerson's photo. Bill also took a closeup of the boom car and the crane itself.

Rick Leggett commented on Joe's post
Good old LC-107. Here it is (on the right) helping to set a bridge girder, after the major flood in 1986.

Mark Hutchinson commented on a post
My setup when I retired. Ran them for 20yrs. Like my homemade handrail design with the hole cut for the foot.

UP owns at least two of these small RoW cranes because they hauled two of them to Texas in 2004 to build temporary piers for a bridge after a pier rolled about 30 degrees. You can see the crooked pier that used to stand under the end of the swing span. The truss span on the other side fell, and it has been removed.

Bob Smith

Mike Snow posted
Working on the diamond in January is never a good job, This is where the NS Chicago Line mp 358 crosses the NS Huntington District in Butler IN, pic from Jan 31, 2005 and construction on the NW connector is just months from being started.

Harvey Allen Sprowl posted two photos with the comment: "Southbound Mow headed into action !
Council Bluffs,Ia."
Jared Hill Assuming it’s headed to Plattsmouth to drive piling on the bridge that’s washed out
[Flood of 2019]

Tom Castro comment
That's the modern one the UP runs.

Scott Griffith posted
Hohman Ave North Hammond
[The clamshell indicates this is used for moving dirt.]

Aaron Bryant posted ten photos of an American crane and its boom car. It looks like it has a fresh paint job, and it has NS reporting marks. I added three photos as comments.

Aaron Bryant posted 22 photos of railroad cranes. Some photos include a NS locomotive, so at least some of the cranes are not museum pieces.

One of 22 photos posted by Aaron Bryant of railroad cranes. Some photos include a NS locomotive, so at least some of the cranes are not museum pieces.
[I selected this photo because of the "eyes" at the end of the boom.]

Unlike the "Big Hooks,", the "Little Hooks" still get used.

Mark Joy posted
The BNSF was doing some maintenance on the High Line bridge over the Sheyenne River.

BNSF evidently needs two of them somewhere.

Harley Kuehl posted
Caught a rare move in my book; two big cranes on the move westbound on today's BNSF SpoPas....shot at Cunningham Washington.

Harley commented on his post

Richard Olson posted eight photos with the comment: "BNSF shipped two American Diesel Electric cranes on the markers of the Spokane to Pasco freight. Prior to pulling all the way into the yard, MoW crews pulled them off."

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Carl Brooks Nice,we had them setting around..wreck panels..in case of a main line derailment..could build the RR back real fast and get the trains moving again...