Hello All:

I am looking for some help on rigging an overhead or bridge crane. I hope that someone will be able to provide some insight.

I am a HO scale modeler and I am modeling an inland port where large loads are transferred from barges to large flat and schnabel cars with a large overhead crane.

There are two facilities that I know of here in the US that do this today. The first is Babcock and Wilcox in Mt. Vernon, In.




The second facility is now used by Alstom, in Chattanooga. This is the former Combustion Engineering plant.



Google Earth gives has a neat feature that allows the user to measure between two points. Living almost 1,500 miles away, I used this to get some rough measurements.



Here is a shot of a turbine being loaded on a barge, at Alstom.



My question is how to rig the crane?

If there are two spools of cable on the top, does that mean that each spool provides an equal lift of half of the lines?



What does the bottom of the crane look like?

Are there an equal number of pulleys at the top and down near the load.

I will be motorize this crane, using small RC servo motors. You can remove the top of the servo, look closely and you will see a nub on one of the gears. That nub that stop the servo from rotating completely. When this nub is removed, then it just becomes a small motor.

I will post my progress as I move forward.

Thanks in advance

Tom

Tom,

Did you start with the HO Walther Heavy duty Bridge crane's ? Peachcreekshops has a great selection of both building materials & the bridge cranes. You might be able to resin cast the hooks to get the amount you need. Great project,please do share when you get it done.

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