Breakdown cranes have been an interest of mine ever since seeing two at work in the mid 1950s ( see attached - any further details welcome! ), and much later realising that in many countries steam breakdown cranes were going to be the final example of such technology, and of such British built technology, at work. Turntables and hydraulic buffers aside.
As to anything else – a railway enthusiast since just out of my pram, with a mother who worked for the LMSR in Coventry from 1937 to 1947. I worked as an architect in the UK, Grenada, Grand Turk, Dubai, Muscat, Qatar and Brunei and as an archaeological surveyor in Jordan. Still travelling, in my retirement, world-wide to ride behind steam locomotives and to view the more general railway scene.
I have had access to a copy of Brownlie since it was so brutally remaindered in the late 1970s and had kept records of the various BR new builds, re-buildings with diesel power, allocation moves and re-numberings through the 1970s and '80s.
For my new interest I started with cranes that I, and a few others, had seen ( and actually noted! ) in India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Rhodesia, S.A. etc., I commenced a listing of steam breakdown cranes exported from UK manufacturers. I visited archives, at that time to Carlisle for Cowans Sheldon and Ipswich for Ransomes and Rapier material, a visit to Leicester for Cravens material being circumvented by a comprehensive response from Morris Cranes. I also started digging interested parties out of the woodwork by asking around at CRC,IRS, LCGB and other meetings that I attend. This led to several exchanges, with amongst others, PT ( HMRS member whose knowledge of UK steam breakdown cranes I rate the most highly ), the late John Gardner ( IRS member from Sheffield who provided Smith, Booth, Stothert and Pitt and some useful industrial information ), CG ( ex IRS editor whose IRS handbook of UK Industrial and preserved cranes had been published ), JM ( one time South Africa resident ), AB ( well enough known!, but also the one-time Crewe South breakdown foreman, whose Indian notes and photos were useful ). Several of the people who maintain and use cranes on the preserved railways were helpful. Others suddenly found pictures they'd taken for amusement, a few found notes. I still attend many slide shows knowing that looking in the background I will find that crane hiding. Several presenters now know they'll be lending me material to copy. I also spent a very large number of evenings ( unpaid overtime at work never was my strong point ) in the Science Research Information Library ( much lamented despite the excellence of the BL ) going through a dozen or more periodicals from the 18890s to the 1940s, and very particularly searching their pre 1940s Trade Literature Catalogue collection ( still well kept by PO'R at the BL ).
However….this led to several ( hopefully adequately cross referenced ) lists; firstly by manufacturer….initially Cowans Sheldon, Ransomes and Rapier, Cravens Brothers, Stothert and Pitt, J.H.Wilson of Birkenhead, Thomas Smith of Rodley, but others were to follow. Secondly by country of destination, and here letters to Indian Railway CMEs and the like, preservationists in Australia, NZ etc. added to material and some longstanding contacts….lists for Burma, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and etc. have been added to the earlier ( numerically greater ) favourites. I'd be happy for you to see and use any of this and to accept any information may be able to add.
A growing interest became those cranes that were ordered for, or requisitioned by the military, both in the Great War and WW2. And more particularly where they ended up! An interest in breakdown cranes was bad enough, foreign ones odd, but military ones! My friends blushed. However it was a gap in a market which is almost entirely black holes…so in I went. The PRO and IWM became a home from home for a year of four day weeks ( work was by now becoming a secondary matter?). There is lack of records due to the military idea of what constitutes a record…it seems more important to know who is on a charge than what is actually happening. Some officers are gems for detail, others punctiliously correct and useless. Many of the questions I would love answers to fall into this category ( see below! ). This class of interest also opened up a minor niche; that of true breakdown cranes going into industrial use.
Another mistake was to show an interest in Brownlie himself, and as to where his records might now be. This led to speaking to people who had met him, knew him, and indeed one who denied it despite the evidence. The same person actually denied taking a particular picture some forty years ago, as if bunking a shipyard in the fifties was going to catch up with him in his twilight years! But there were two real contacts: HS whose late father had been a senior ScR officer and still had his postcard collection of Brownlie snaps ( I speak not to be derogatory but explain below ) which he lent me to photocopy; and RG who had, third hand, become the guardian of several hundred negatives. This man said 'they're in the attic, I'd get them, but I've just broken my hip…I'll call you in six months'. Which he did, and with the absolute encouragement of his wife who could be heard in the background of a later phone call, he sent me many negatives. The negatives are poor, often very flat; Brownlie was not photographer in any aesthetic sense of the matter nor spent out on equipment or film quality. But fortunately I knew a photographer who would care, and despite his constant harping at how difficult they were to print, then several hundred pounds later, I had them all printed. And the next task was to make another list; reconciling those from postcards and those from negatives, also those in his book. I now have to be interested in small cranes in industrial use….a veritable quick sand, since the industrial fifties is virtually unrecognisable in 21C Britain. Many of the cranes are uncertain as to manufacturer, and as to whereabouts. This spawned more lists from 'lesser' manufacturers, and more archive visits ( and I still tried to keep a job ).
This was all prior to the web being of any significance to serious research, but it has, with a few setbacks regarding copyrights etc., produced some advances; and the ability to communicate with few known individuals more easily. PT in NZ ( who runs an excellent NZGR crane website, and also hosts a crane group ), BW in Australia, and others in Germany, Kenya and Argentina.
But research has fermented further interests; apart from the obvious such as other european breakdown crane makers ( I have not the time for more than a passing interest in the US scene, except where the military become involved in shipping equipment to the European theatre ); this has been principally with the field widening to Blocklayers/Blocksetters/Titans and the like, and Giant Cantilevers/Hammerheads.

I set out a few notes to illustrate gaps that would be good to know more about in the breakdown crane area. I will post specific queries in due course.
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- Certain identity and history of WW1 vintage Cravens, or Cowans Sheldon copy, crane at DB Hamburg in the 1960's. ( I have one photo provided by a German enthusiast, the DB Society have not come up with anything.)
- Photographs of the Stothert and Pitt 1917 breakdown crane cut up at SNCB Leuven in 2000. ( I have a S&P brochure page and an IWM 1944 photo )
- Information regarding the second 'sister' Stothert and Pitt 1917 breakdown crane that may have, via the Nord or the Nord Belge, ended up with the SNCF or the SNCB.
- Photographs of the third Stothert and Pitt 1917 breakdown crane which went from surplus at Richborough to the Port Talbot Drydock. Evidence of date of scrapping. ( I have two Brownlie photos )
- Further photographs of the Cowans Sheldon 'Black Prince' 1917 breakdown crane which went to the Greenwells Graving Drydock Co. at Sunderland. ( pictured in Brownlie book )
- Any knowledge regarding Smith, Rodley crane in use at Trafford Park in early 1920s. ( photo in 'Engineering' )
- Any certainty whether the GSR/CIE took two ( definitely ), three ( pretty certainly ) or four number war surplus Cowans Sheldon 20-tonners They were built for Russia on 5' gauge. One survives at Mallow.
- Photographs of Cowans Sheldon breakdown crane sold as WW2 surplus to Steel Company of Wales. Evidence of date/place ( assumed on site! ) of scrapping. ( I have but one awful photo of its jib behind a wagon! )
- Works number of Cowans Sheldon breakdown crane at Budapest Museum ( Army 223 ) I've asked all the locals.
- Photographs and works numbers of the three Cowans Sheldon breakdown cranes which went to the SNCF post WW2. Information as to whether they returned to the UK prior to transfer. SNCF GD243, 447 and 644, later dieselised. The SNCF railway society has been asked.
- Further photographs of the Ransomes and Rapier breakdown crane which went to the NS post WW2. ( I have a Bonthuis photos )
- Details of any steam cranes converted to diesel power by BR Derby or CS auspices for the Army.
- Details as to when/how CS crane went to OBB as this crane was not one recorded as crossing soon after D-Day. ( now preserved at Strasshof, Vienna ) MoS 30T 6-4W CS 7870?/1944
- Any information regarding the two R&R 100+ ton cranes that went to Singapore in the 1930s. One on MG, one on SG. They are illustrated in R&R catalogues. Confirmation that they were wrecked, or put in the sea, by the retreating allies, or did the Japanese recover them?
- Any information/photographs regarding the R&R crane that went to Tata Iron and Steel in the 1930s.