This thread was created to clean-up a thread in the Model Railroader Forum.  Some of these  pictures were posted there, but are somewhat off-topic.   I'd originally planned to remove those photos and replace them with a link, but decided to leave them.  I have, however, left a link too, so we may see some extra traffic around here and perhaps some new Members, too.   My friends here, naturally, are invited to view these photos, too.

The crane was scratchbuilt in 1970, and is a composite of several cranes on which I worked.  Originally, I set out to build a model of a blast furnace, and was able to get copies of blueprints of my employer's biggest blast furnace, at that time, the largest in North America, I think.


Here are a few photos of the real one...

   

   

   

   

   

...and the modelled version of the picture above...

   

   

   

I had the majority of the casthouse built, plus the blast furnace shell to the bell (top of the main structure), but with none of the piping or other large details at the top.  At that point, it was well over 2' tall, and the pipes would have pushed it to over 3'.  I also had the main structure of the double-track skip bridge built - milled basswood angles, channels, etc., with steel rails installed.  The casthouse itself occupied a board 3'x3', and yet to be added were the stockhouse, about 1'x5', stoves 1'x3', and gas scrubbers and baghouses, about 2'x3'.  As it was, the casthouse occupied most of the student-type desk that I was using, and we were living in a one bedroom apartment at the time.  
Besides that, I was running out of funds for materials.
 
We moved several times, but with no place to do any further work , I eventually began to take things apart.  The last to go was the skip bridge, and some of the rails from it were used on the crane.  The crane spent a lot of time in a shoebox, until we were finally able to build our own house, with a basement for a train layout.  
Since the crane was complete, I hunted for a suitable spot on the layout, and the area behind the locomotive shop in Lowbanks seemed appropriate.  Two of the cranes which inspired the construction were outdoor cranes, anyway, so it was suitable for such a locale.  

The main parts of the crane (bridge, trolley, and cab) are .020" and .030" sheet styrene, reinforced using milled basswood shapes - such shapes in styrene either didn't exist or I was unaware of them.  All of the handrails were also basswood angles, although some were damage in storage and I've replace those with styrene parts.

The bearing caps on the trolley wheels are from a Revell model of a Russian T-33 tank, the wheels on the bridge and trolley are from old HO scale brass wheelsets, and the oversize sheaves in the hook block are from the ship-builders' section of my LHS at the time.  Pretty-well everything else is scratchbuilt from sheet styrene:  the motors, reduction gearboxes, electrical cabinets and switchboxes, even the magnet.
The crane runway was built for the installation on the layout, and is mostly Evergreen styrene shapes - H-columns, I-beams, and various angles and channels.  Stairs up to the crane are from Tichy, although the ones on the crane itself are scratchbuilt.  Oh, and the enclosure surrounding the steps up to the crane  and the electrical switch gear, was made from corrugated basswood siding salvaged from the blast furnace's casthouse.


   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   


That appears to be all of the crane photos I have, although I've not used ones which were similar to some shown, and I have apparently lost all of my photos from 2012.

Wayne

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Whenever I have an appointment with Doctor Wayne I always bring my camera to do some rail-fanning on his EG&E empire.On this particular visit in the past I caught CNR Mike #3377 just as she entered the yard at Lowbanks.

Two Atlas HO (silver) Master NS GP38-2 (without ditch lights) arrived today and the ESU terror continues......

IMG_5847 by Reinhard Peters, on Flickr

The new drive (left front) has a PCB to short to be replaced with a Tsunami 2 decoder (left rear on top of drive). The older Trainman drive (left rear) has the space to house a Tsunami replacement easily AND it still fits the new shell (with micro modifications, remove all pegs from the shell botttom).
In front is an old Trainman drive with the new GP38-2 shell and tank.

I can not use the ESU specific PCB as it has no provisions to drive ditch lights I intend to install later. That excludes ESU and Tsunami 21 pin decoders. It is sad to see how ESU influences Atlas to ......

A great film about the end of steam in Canada. Lots of great shots. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg9_TnwrCXw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg9_TnwrCXw</a><!-- m -->
Charlie

The city buildings of freelance 2017-3 will get a save place in the basement. The white paper laminated foam boards that covered the rear parts of Freelance 2017-2 as a clean base are on their way to the trash can. I had a great time to build a city 4 meters long and 30 cm wide.


The tracks and switches survived the coverup time unharmed.



It's time for Freelance 2017-4 and make use of all tracks again
My initial thoughts are less buildings and more green served by NS and CSX (and may be CR with minor modifications). As usual no track modifications.

It seems like a lot of railroads are ordering new or rebuilt low emissions locomotives these days. I'm curious to know, with the exception of the Atlas gensets, are there other variations of low emissions options out there either resin kits or 3d printed shells that could fit on existing frames? It seems if I want to model the present day these should be considered, and I kind of like how ugly they are. Here's a few examples.
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I is a couple days late but time for a new Photo Fun. A little steam action on my layout this week.         Charlie

I realized my northern branch plan was all over the place and couldn't realistically fit all the industries and aspects of the branch that I would have liked to include without peninsulas jetting out everywhere. So, I'm going back to the drawing board and back to one of my first posts on this forum almost 6 years ago <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://bigbluetrains.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5883">viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5883</a><!-- l --> . I'm just annoyed that I sold off all my cross harbor engines

I think I've come up with a track plan that will depict bush terminal even after moving around some key features of the area. Although the duck under corner of the loft building is on 41st & 2nd it'll be on 1st and the car float bridge will be on the north end of the yard not the south. I'll probably come up with a freelance railroad with my own paint scheme and logos but that's still up for debate. It takes up much less space and I think this will be more fun to build and operate.
Here's what I drew up:

calling doctorwayne...

I have been enjoying the posts on here and elsewhere about GERN flux. That said I cannot find anywhere anyone has put together a central repository, website, or not even a facebook page for GERN. Does any of that exist? All I find are varied forum posts and they're often hard to follow. It would certainly be handy to have a specific place for others to find the details and learn about GERN and start their own franchise in a easy to read manner. This could go a long way to keeping Mr Gibson happy and may even create many more GERN affiliates.

Has doctorwayne ever considered immortalizing the GERN registry and company advertisements in another format or am I just not finding such? What I suggesting is simply a webpage, or even a sticky forum topic (searchable by Google, etc) that could even be on this website or elsewhere, describing exactly what GERN is and why and how to become part of it. You could also have the current rolling stock registry listed. It would also make a nice place for images to be easily found. And of course it would lead back to this forum for relevant discussion.

It is possible I just haven't found such a place yet, but that is exactly why I am suggesting such a thing. If I can't find it others can't. I only heard of such a thing by bumping into it reading another forum but then I found little bits and pieces strewn all over before I collected enough information to get the big picture of how many people and how far GERN has spread.