Book Railway Breakdown Cranes, Volume 1 - Peter Tatlow

[Steph Dale]

My copy finally arrived today and I thought some first impressions may be in order as there's a few of us on this 'ere forum with crane projects on the go. Or (as in my case) at least well through the planning stage.

Naturally I turned to the pages which are relevant to the models I'm planning - the two LSWR cranes. I was pleased to find a number of photos (about half of which don't seem to have been published before) and some nice reproductions of some very well-drafted drawings. The descriptions seem accurate and well-researched; they certainly compare well with my notes.

In terms of other info, there are a couple of good sketches and photos illustrating the crab gears. There seem to be weight diagrams (at least) for all the cranes described and some of them are accorded the fine detail drawings as found for DS35.

The reproduction is first-rate with some of the best photo printing I've seen in a long while. There's a couple of informative sections towards the back of the book, including a number of colour photos.

Highly recommended.

For reference, the contents are:
Preface
Introduction
Early Days
Early Cowans Sheldon Cranes
Standard Cowans Sheldon Cranes
Further Cowans Sheldon Cranes
Early Competition
Railway Built Cranes
Long Jib Cranes
Poor Rivals
Ransomes & Rapier Consolidates its Position
Further Smaller Cranes
Unusual Duo
Use of Cranes on breakdown
Civil engineering activities
Appendices: Mechanical details, Speed of motions, Lifting performance, Glossary of terms
Acknowledgements
Colour Section

I hope it's of interest - I can see there's a lot here that will help with my models.
One omission is that there isn't a great deal about the vehicles accompanying the cranes, although the jib-runners are well covered.

Steph

 

[Eastsidepilot]

...........
..One omission is that there isn't a great deal about the vehicles accompanying the cranes, although the jib-runners are well covered.
Steph

Excuse for another book maybe Steph, Certainly I'll be adding this one to the book shelf.

ATB, Col.

 

[Simon]

Confessions of a wagon spotter

Good to hear some feedback, Gordon Ashton bought a copy from me and after some initial misgivings that the odd GW crane was missing e-mailed me to say that he had found it(!)

For obscure wagon spotters (and why wouldn't you be) there is in the book a previously unseen (by my S&D "heavy mob") picture of the ex S&D diagram 1307 2 plank that survived as a crane runner well into the BR era.

When I first studied the book I got really excited as I thought I'd found pictures of the dia 1307 wagons that went to the MR (when the S&D stock was split between the two "lanlords"), but upon sober reflection the fact that were three planked and were referenced to a special MR diagram were pretty heavy "clues" that they weren't.

But then, in my defence, they look incredibly similar to the S&D wagons in terms of wheelbase, underframe and body style - makes you think.....

Simon

 

[Ressaldar]

and another gem is the two photo 'spread' of the Class 14 belly-up and revealing all

Mne came today as well.

cheers

Mike