CRANES (MACHINE HISTORY) 

At the start of the eighteenth century transportation in Europe was still fairly primitive. Although some European countries had overseas empires transport to and from colonies was slow by sailing ships. There had been no major road construction projects since the end of the Roman Empire; roads were little more than dirt tracks. Frequently it was quicker to transport people, raw materials, and finished products by river than over land on poor roads.

The first way in which transportation and the Industrial Revolution demonstrated that they were closely connected to each other was the development of a canal network in England that linked London with industrial centres such as Birmingham, Manchester, and Newcastle. The new canal system also meant that places like Birmingham and Manchester were able to receive coal and other materials from mining areas and seaports.  The link between Transportation and the Industrial Revolution was further increased by the invention of steam trains and railway networks. Railroads originated in England and Great Britain took the lead in technological and industrial development, with a national railway network being constructed in less than twenty years. Railway networks soon spread to continental Europe, North America, South America, Asia, as well as Africa.

Steam-hauled public railways began with the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825 and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. Construction of major railways connecting the larger cities and towns began in the 1830s but only gained momentum at the very end of the first Industrial Revolution.  The first high pressure steam engine locomotive was developed by Richard Trevithick in 1802; a locomotive using smooth wheels on an iron track could pull cars of freight a few hundred yards.

In 1815, George Stephenson built the prototype of the modern steam locomotive, starting a technological race over the next century to build locomotives with more power at higher steam pressures. Stephenson himself was one of the major innovators. His decisive breakthrough came in 1825 when he built the Stockton and Darlington line, 12 miles long, that proved it was commercially feasible to have a system of usable length.

On his first run, his locomotive pulled 38 freight and passenger cars at speeds as high as 12 miles per hour. Stephenson’s “Rocket” was the locomotive for the Liverpool and Manchester line, which opened in 1830.

Stephenson went on to design many more railways, and is best known for standardising designs, such as the “standard” gauge of rail spacing, at 4 feet 8 ½ inches. The first engines used in the United States were purchased from the Stephenson Works in England. Even rails were largely imported from England until the Civil War. Americans who had visited England to see new steam locomotives were impressed that railroads dropped the cost of shipping by carriage by 60 to70%.

Thomas Brassey (7 November 1805 – 8 December 1870) was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about one third of the railways in Britain, and by time of his death in 1870 he had built one mile in every 20 miles of railway in the world. This included three-quarters of the lines in France, major lines in many other European countries and in Canada, Australia, South America and India. He also built the structures associated with those railways, including docks, bridges, viaducts, stations, tunnels and drainage works. Thomas Brassey was even more prominent than Stephenson, operating construction crews that at one point in the 1840s totaled 75,000 men throughout Europe, the British Empire, and Latin America. He and thousands of British engineers and crews went all over the world to build new lines.

As well as railway engineering, Brassey was active in the development of steamships, mines, locomotive factories, marine telegraphy, and water supply and sewage systems. He built part of the London sewerage system, still in operation today, and was a major shareholder in Brunel's The Great Eastern, the only ship large enough at the time to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable across the North Atlantic, in 1864.

CRANE EQUIPMENT 19TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY - BREAKDOWN CRANES  sometimes called wrecking cranes or 'big hooks'  

The last half of the nineteenth century was a period which experienced rapid progress in science and technology. There were important breakthroughs in iron and steel technology, electricity, weapons, physics and chemistry, sociology, psychology and biology. Numerous projects such as ocean liners with steel hulls, skyscrapers, suspension bridges, (all these required high tensile steel which could be produced in quantity in the Bessemer steel furnace and the open hearth furnace) were undertaken.  Many of these constructions required the use of the crane.

A railroad crane, (crane car (US) or breakdown crane (UK)) is a type of crane used on a railroad for one of three primary uses: freight handling in goods yards, permanent way (PW) maintenance, and accident recovery work. Although the design differs according to the type of work, the basic configuration is similar in all cases: a rotating crane body is mounted on a sturdy chassis fitted with flanged wheels. The body supports the jib and provides all the lifting and operating mechanisms; on larger cranes, an operator's cabin is usually provided. The chassis is fitted with buffing and coupling gear to allow the crane to be moved by a locomotive, although many are also self-propelled to allow limited movement about a work site.

In the early days of the railways, locomotives and rolling stock were small enough to be re-railed manually using jacks and tackle, but as they became bigger and heavier this method became inadequate.  Enter into this the steam crane and cable winch. Appearing about 1890, the cranes increased in size, commensurate with the rise of steel Pullman cars, so by 1910 cranes reached their peak of development. Many of these 1910-era cranes were so useful and powerful, that they remained in service until the 1980s. The combination of a quick-firing steam boiler, heavy steam winch, and cable hook could little be improved upon, and thus remained in service. Also, steam engines did not mind being parked for months, with a little care, and were ready to go to work when needed.

EXAMPLES OF RAILWAY CRANES
(Click on images for larger view)
Coles Steam Crane	Steam Crane 1903	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane loading coal	Steam Crane
Hand Steam Crane	Mounted Steam Cranes			Steam Crane	Steam Crane
Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane
Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane
Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	NZ Steam Crane
1912 Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Way & Works Crane		Steam Crane Crew
1889 Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane	1924 Steam Crane	Steam Crane	Steam Crane
Steam Crane	Overhead Gantry Crane	Overhead Gantry Crane	Overhead Gantry Crane	Cantilever Jib Crane	Cantilever Jib Cranes

Referred to by railroad men in the America as the "Big Hook," wrecking cranes were used to lift rolling stock and locomotives back on to the rails after a derailment or wreck. Please refer to the link directly below for more photographs and information regarding wrecking/breakdown cranes.

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