my dad works at BP refinery in whiting and he said there's a bunch of construction going on. he said they got this big lift crane in there yesterday. he said it's the largest crane made and it runs on rails. he said there are only 4 others like it in the world. the only problem is they dropped the boom and damaged it when they were putting it up. has anyone ever seen or operated one of these beasts or even have pictures? anything would be great if possible. thanks in advance
I've never operated (but really, really wanted to try) any, but I have seen smaller ones at a place I interviewed at a few years ago. The place made large diameter concrete pipe, and they had a half-dozen or so at the plant. The ones they had looked basically like a rail engine, with the crane mounted in about the middle. They used them to pick the pipe out to the "spinners" that wound steel wire around the layers of concrete, and to lft buckets of concrete to the tubs.
Is it the Gottwald rail crane? Or are you talking about the Mammoet PTC..or similar
liebherr i'm not really sure because it hasn't been set up yet to it hasn't needed fuel so my dad hasn't been able to get close to it to see what it is.
Mammoet has the heavy lift cranes in the refinery or atleats did. They have a CC2800 on the dock unloading 400ton vessels.
Yeah Buddy of mine is one of the operators on it. Crane was a pile of junk when it came in. I also wonder about this rail crane. Guy I am oiling for now I'm at US Steel , said rails suck. No matter what your sitting on 4 feet of rail width. And he told me it feels very unstable. There is one rail crane in our mill on the highline ,and It doesn't look to appealing.
Standard rail width is closer to 5', but that is still narrow compared to the 18' or more on standard outriggers.
The crane is a manitowoc 888 ringer. Around 800 or 900 ton. Far from the biggest crane made but still a big one. Ringer bases are larger and more stable than tracks or out riggers.