Old Crane

As 2011 comes to a close, I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of the management and staff of craneblogger.com to thank our loyal readers who have devoted a few moments of their busy day to spend with us.

The UK’s Tower Crane Register, introduced in 2010, will be abandoned, as recommended in an independent review of health and safety legislation published in November 2011.

A number of buildings were evacuated in downtown Wilmington North Carolina, yesterday after the boom of a nearby mobile crane appeared to buckle. Police were concerned that it might bend further or break and fall on the occupied buildings that were within range– thus the evacuation.

A three axle city type All Terrain crane ended up on its roof today after coming down the long steep Ebchester Hill, in the village of Ebchester in County Durham the UK. The hill has an escape lane as it approaches the village and joins the main road – the A-694 – in a T-Junction.

The incident occurred under a highway overpass when the crane’s superstructure seems to have slewed over the side of the truck causing it to lose stability. The crane appears to be an old Lima lattice truck crane and if so must be somewhere around 30 years old – if not more.

Four Liebherr duty cycle crawler cranes, type HS 895 HD, HS 885 HD and two HS 855 HD with hydrofraise, are hard at work in Seattle on Contract U220. Contract U220 is part of the University Link project, a 3.15-mile light rail extension between Downtown Seattle and the University of Washington.

The UK’s crane rental association – the Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA) – has issued a Technical Information Note, a letter and a declaration form to help UK crane rental companies overcome customer demands for a four year overload test that is no longer required or recommended.

A reader from the UK has sent us some photos of an old steam crane in Manchester and wonders if anyone has any information on it. He says that he came across it sitting in dock and when questioned the stefedores working on it they told him that they did not know anything of its history but that it is due to be cut up for scrap.

The 59-storey tower has suffered several delays and internal problems since construction began in 2006 and in late-2009, Hill International took over management of the project

Following a complaint, RCMP are looking for Paddy Gene Doherty, a man who is alleged to have conducted inspection of machinery at about 27 businesses throughout the Kootenies. Doherty faces 49 charges of fraud and uttering a forged document.