Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Steam crane in New York.

This is topic Steam crane in New York. in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-01-2004, 04:54 PM:

On two days this week, Sunday and Wednesday I think, I saw a steam crane working at the Whitehall ferry terminal. It was on the water side of the terminal, mounted on a barge, and was on the left hand side, as seen from a ferry leaving the terminal. On another day it was moored out of use on the other side of the terminal. This crane was painted red, but there was another one, painted blue, at the St. George ferry terminal, which was not in use when I saw it.

Are these machines still in regular use, or have they been brought out of retirement for some reason? Is there a shortage of Diesel cranes at the moment?

Cranes were among the last regular users of reciprocating steam engines over here, but the last ones that I know of, other than preserved ones, were withdrawn several years ago.

Does anyone know anything about these cranes? Are they coal or oil fired? There was more smoke from the boiler than I would have expected to see with oil, but no obvious piles of coal.

When were they built? They didn't look very old, as steam cranes go, most of the ones that I saw in use over here dated from the '30s.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-01-2004, 08:46 PM:

Well, I did find this link but nothing about steam cranes.....

http://www.lowermanhattan.info/news/grand_vistas_from_whitehall_60358.asp

Now if you said pile driver I might believe it, but not steam crane. Steam driven pile drivers are still not all that uncommon and the steam is usually supplied from the ship thats pushing the pile driver around but sometimes a boiler on the barge itself. Might this have been what you saw there???

Mark

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-02-2004, 02:54 AM:

No, it was a crane, with a grab on the end, unloading material of some sort from a barge. When I get round to mixing up a batch of E6, maybe tomorrow, I'll post a picture.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-02-2004, 08:21 PM:

Yes, I and a few others here would love to see exactly what the heck it was. I can only imagine that its still there because some old union worker in N.Y.'s job hinged on there being a steam crane or not.....so they are keeping his steam crane till retirement. I can't imagine some restored crane being used for normal work on a pier.

Mark

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-03-2004, 04:26 PM:

I made up a batch of E6 this evening, but then felt too tired to do any processing. I'm working late tomorrow, and possibly Wednesday, so it may be Thursday before I can process, and Friday before I can scan and post a picture. It won't be a very good picture, I had to grab a couple of shots very quickly as the ferry sailed out, with whatever lens happened to be on the body, and without taking too much time. The thing was rather different in design to cranes that I've seen working here. The 'works' seemed to be inside, most cranes I've seen have had external cylinders, acting on crank pins set in a flywheel on each side, or a flywheel on one side and a gear on the other. I didn't notice any makers name on it.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-03-2004, 06:46 PM:

The majority of US made cranes were all covered. It may have been an early Bucyrus Erie crane. They did make steam cranes into the late 20's.

Mark

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-31-2004, 03:15 PM:

Anything to do with Ruston Bucyrus who used to make excavators, draglines, face shovels and that sort of thing, in the days when they were cable operated, rather than hydraulic?

Steam cranes were still being made up to about the late '50s, but the ones which lasted longest were the big breakdown cranes on the railways, most of these were built in the '30s, and the last were withdrawn about ten years ago. Some were converted to Diesel power, but I don't know if any of these are still in service; the modern Diesel cranes with telescopic jibs are much quicker and more convienient to use.

I had a big backlog of film to process; I make up one litre of chemistry, so I can only process four rolls of 35mm at a time, and the pics of the steam crane happened to be in the last batch, which I put through this evening. The film won't be dry tonight, but I'll scan it tomorrow, and post the pics, to see if anyone can identify it.

Processing film costs money [Frown]

, while projecting film makes money (rather a lot of it) [Smile]

, so whenever there's any projection work going this takes priority over processing.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-31-2004, 03:30 PM:

"Processing film costs money "

I kow what you mean... When I shoot 4X5 Chromes I budget 5 bucks a sheet [Eek!]

. The results have been well worth it the high price though.
Looking forword to seeing your shots!!

Mark

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-01-2004, 08:12 AM:

Well, they're not very good pictures, as I said, and heavy comrpession hasn't helped either, but see what you make of them.

The first five pictures are of the crane which was working at the Whitehall terminal.

This is the crane which was at the St. George's terminal. It wasn't in use, but you get a better view of it.

This is a small section, scanned at a higher resolution.

I think the inscription on the side is just about readable, but if not it reads:

"Dept of transportation city of New York".

On the back of the thing it said:

"Derrick No 3"

Anybody know anything about it?

Is the Department of Transportation contactable?

Posted by Floyd Justin Newton (Member # 1316) on 06-01-2004, 10:37 PM:

Stephen--
I can't tell you anything about the above derrick, however
it DOES have a boiler and pistons!!

fjn
Local 294 Ret. [Wink]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-03-2004, 08:57 AM:

Stephen,
I ahve to admit thats pretty amazing to say the least!! The crane on the barge in the first shots is painted Manitowoc Red and it looks like there is a Manitowoc logo on the side of it. These logos are also sometmes painted in reverse colors.

Bucyrus Erie used a gross orange and sometimes yellow color on theor cranes so its probably not them. Can you e-mail me a higer rez file on it and I might be able to find that out for you. Donno on the other cranes but Manitowoc might know who made them and the age.

Great shots!

Mark

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-03-2004, 10:17 AM:

I think both cranes were the same model, though the jibs were slightly different. I doubt that they'll stil be there next year when I go back. Almost all of the old Whitehall terminal building has now gone, and much of the new one is now in place.

I don't know if you know the area; just behind the crane in the first few pics is another ferry terminal, covered in scaffolding. There was a U.S. Coastguard sign on it last year, before the scaffolding went up. I don't know what it was used for, but it's now under restoration, it's a rather fine building, clad in decorative copperwork. This seems to be quite a commonon thing over there, but I've never seen anything like it here. The two terminal buildings standing side by side can be clearly seen in the opening shots of 'West Side Story'.

The old ferry terminal building at Hoboken is going to be restored, some work has already tahen place. The copper cladding looks rather fine, but where some of it has either fallen off, or been removed for work to take place the concrete structure underneath doesn't look too good, there seems to be quite a lot of reinforcement showing, and corroding.

As I said, they are poor photos, but I'll send you some better scans. What sort of Internet connection do you have? Can you handle large files?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-03-2004, 07:51 PM:

Hi Stephen,

I have DSL so large files are not a problem. Send them to highbias2000@yahoo.com and I'll see if I can find out who made them... and who takes care of them as well.

Thanks!
Mark

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-10-2004, 07:27 AM:

Mark, did the pictures get through to you eventually? I had problems sending them. If not, I'll send them again.