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PostPosted: 20 Jan 2011, 00:49 
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Joined: 07 Jan 2011, 17:55
Posts: 25
Greetings, just a quicky to say hello. I am 70yrs old and was thrown on the scrapheap of life at 50 and loving every minute. My only brush with the 4' 8.5" was travelling on the Liverpool Overhead Railway to work before the Vespa! I served my time as a Fitter/Turner in shiprepair work and ended up in the oil industry before early retirement. Enough of me, why cranes? I took up Model Engineering to keep the brain going and after finishing my 5" gauge steam loco, was looking around for something to pull behind it. I initialy thought of a parcels train, lots of variety of stock, when I espied a photo of a breakdown train. Big variety of stock, wagons, coach, guards van and of course the crane; enough to keep me busy for a while. I managed to obtain a load of photo's of the Craven 25 ton at NRM before the "elfandsaftey" stopped you enjoying yourself and with some full size measurements I am not to far from completion. I will try to post some photo's later. I am very interested in the equipement that was carried on the b/down train, this kind of stuff puts flesh on the bones, so to speak, but it seems to be rarely photographed. Anyway, nice to be amongst you guys.


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 20 Jan 2011, 00:53 
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Joined: 23 Dec 2010, 00:07
Posts: 384
Location: Poole, Dorset
Welcome, John! Nice to have a large scale modeller on board, and we look forward to seeing some photos of your crane in due course.

Roger


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 20 Jan 2011, 22:22 
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Joined: 10 Jan 2011, 18:39
Posts: 50
Location: Bourne lincolnshire
Welcome John, as an ex breakdown man I can most likley tell you everything that was on our train aas I had to keep it maintained & ready to go, I must say though that my time was in the desiel days & not the days of steam. What sort of kit do you want to know about ? our main bit of heavy lifting equiptment other than the crane was MFD, this is a hydraulic pump set & assorted hydraulic jacks, plus beams, trollies & pushing jacks, this set up was used to pick up the derailed item & move it to an adjacent line, if I remember right the biggest jacks were rated at 120t.


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 22 Jan 2011, 23:28 
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Hi Chris, thank you for your offer. Beams I have seen in photo's, its the other interesting "bits", that would sit nicely on a 3 plank wagon in the train. Have you any photo's and details of the trolleys, where they the same or did they come in different sizes, incidently, did they carry the wreck back to a siding or were they used just in the area of the accident? The pushing jack sounds interesting, what was that used for and what form did it take. So many questions, but these details are not shewn in accident photo's. Any other interesting specialist bits? Regards John


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2011, 10:16 
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Joined: 15 Dec 2010, 22:30
Posts: 298
Location: North Cambridgeshire, UK
John, I'll intrude here as I have some information and websites to hand which may help answer your questions to Chris.

It can be confusing when we speak of "beams" in connection with recovery work as there several types. For instance, we have spreader beams which hang from the crane hook, propping beams which extend from the crane carriage when lifting heavy loads, and the MFD beams that Chris was referring to. Then there are buffer beams, bridge beams....etc.!

A brief description and picture of MFD re-railing equipment can be seen here:
http://www.worlifts.co.uk/index.php/mfd ... -equipment.

MFD equipment in use (but for an unusual purpose) can be see here:
http://www.departmentals.com/photo/975456b

MFD re-railing equipment was introduced in the first half of the 1950s. The power source for the hydraulic rams can be electric (mains or portable unit) and there was also an option of hand-pump, or even using the loco's air pump.

The whole set can be carried to the site by road if that is more convenient than by rail. In theory, the entire re-railing operation can be done by just one man and his van!

It would be interesting to see some posts from Chris about his experiences with MFD. That would make a good start for the General Breakdown and Recovery section of this forum.


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2011, 22:45 
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Joined: 10 Jan 2011, 18:39
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Location: Bourne lincolnshire
David Withers wrote:
The power source for the hydraulic rams can be electric (mains or portable unit) and there was also an option of hand-pump, or even using the loco's air pump.

The whole set can be carried to the site by road if that is more convenient than by rail. In theory, the entire re-railing operation can be done by just one man and his van!



Our MFD was powered by a deisel engine (Lister) & took 4 men to carry the pumpset, even then it was so heavy it had to be carried in stages, once we got the BRUFF road railer it was easy as the pump was built in to the truck.
Everything about MFD was heavy, the 120t jacks took 2 men to carry them. the trollies I was refering to sat on the beam with the jacks on them, the pushing jacks fitted into the end of one of the trollies and located into a hole in the beam at the other end, once the load had been lifted you then extended the pushing jack to move the load, then you would have to lift the jack out of the beam, retract the jack & relocate into the next hole on the beam to push again.

If we needed to move a loco or waggon to a siding or depot we had wheel skates, or if all else failed we used an emergency bogie that was in kit form in one of the tool vans


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2011, 22:49 
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Joined: 10 Jan 2011, 18:39
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Location: Bourne lincolnshire
David Withers wrote:
MFD equipment in use (but for an unusual purpose) can be see here:


This is not an unusual purpose, it is exactly what we used it for


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 24 Jan 2011, 10:13 
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Joined: 15 Dec 2010, 22:30
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Location: North Cambridgeshire, UK
David Withers wrote:
In theory, the entire re-railing operation can be done by just one man and his van!
Yes, that comment was silly, even with the "in theory"! W R Robinson's book "From Steam to Stratford" includes a very good description of their MFD equipment and, like yourself, Chris, he said "It required four strong men to carry it".

In saying that the picture showed an unusual use for MFD, I meant that it wouldn't be usual to transfer a complete carriage by MFD from one track to another in a non-accident situation, unless there was no rail connection between the two tracks within reasonable distance. I could well be wrong of course, being a non-railway chap.


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 24 Jan 2011, 13:09 
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Joined: 10 Jan 2011, 18:39
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Location: Bourne lincolnshire
David Withers wrote:
I meant that it wouldn't be usual to transfer a complete carriage by MFD from one track to another in a non-accident situation, unless there was no rail connection between the two tracks within reasonable distance. I could well be wrong of course, being a non-railway chap.


By the looks of the photo they are training,
I was once chased by a 37 after the pushing jack came out & the whole lot started to run toward me ! I wasn`t going to be on the leavers when the trolly ran off the end of the beam.


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 Post subject: Re: Introduction
PostPosted: 24 Jan 2011, 18:59 
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Joined: 26 Dec 2010, 19:06
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It is an awful lot easier to move from track to track with MFD gear than using slewing jacks.
Did that once in Barry with a 4F loco and tender 44123.
23 lifts for the tender alone on 4 jacks.

_________________
Bryan

http://www.nymr-pway.co.uk/


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