QQQ1970: Marklin has not yet produced that model. A suitable model was produced by Roco as a "Gueterzugbegleitwagen" (=caboose). It has the correct era 3 color (dark green), although not the respective lettering. But you wouldn't notice once a few feet away... I have added two (Fleischmann and Brawa) green covered vans, a gondola to carry the coal and a tank wagon for water to complete the train. My favorite locomotive is either the BR 94 (Maerklin) or BR 82 (Piko) tank loco.

Cheers, Phascolarctos

Hi QQQ1970:

I was afraid that you wold ask for the model numbers... I took the cars from my collection, and I don't have a system to remember their catalog numbers, but it turned out to be much easier than I thought, using google...

So, here are the part numbers:
1. Crew car: DB caboose, Roco 46971
2. 3 box cars in DB green (called "bottle green" used on maintenance cars during DB era 3 and early era 4): 1 x Brawa 49024 (this one is an early era 4, i.e. it's green is a little to light), 1 x Fleischmann from construction train set 535 203, 1 x from Maerklin Ardelt crane set. These are all box cars type G10 "Stettin", which were converted to construction train use
3. crane and flat car for the boom, Maerklin Ardelt crane set
4. tank car: One would need to have a dedicated water tank car. Best would be an old locomotive tender (which would also carry the coal), which I don't have (I might try to build one). But a tank car will do fine. These were converted from commercial tank cars and would have DB maintenance numbers. I didn't have that type in my collection, so I used the Brawa 48881, a fuel tanker for the VTG tank car company. You want to make certain that they don't have any advertising painted on them.
5. coal gondola: My thought was that the crane won't need a lot of coal, so I chose a small car, e.g. a type O 02 Schwerin or O 11 Nuernberg from the Maerklin 46026 or 46030 sets.

When moving to the work site, the order in the train would be to have the crane likely at the end, all the cars at the other end with the tank and coal cars next to the crane.

The crane would then be separated and moved to the site, which will be prepared by placing the stacks of sleepers for the outriggers at the appropriate locations.

This website shows the crane in use:

https://www.eisenbahndie...lt/kran-57t/kran-57t.htm

The text is in German, but you get a good idea how the train might look like. You will notice that my train is somewhat on the short side...

www.eisenbahndienstfahrzeuge.de is a website that lists all types of maintenance and construction equipment. Because of the wealth of material, there is no search function, though. Crane in German is "Kran", you find the Ardelt crane by looking for "Krupp Ardelt". This type of crane had a lifting capacity of 57 metric tons, and would typically be used for the construction of bridges and other repair in postwar Germany. There are pictures how two of them would lift a pre-fabricated bridge into place.

'hope this helps and is of interest!

...I just saw your other questions come in:
- tilting of the support flat car: I have notices that the crane itself (because of its pick-up shoe?) has a lot of driving resistance. Thus, I couple the crane close to the loco, followed by the cars. That avoids the cars being lifted from the track if the crane is at the end.
- high rotation speed: I have also found that speed to be too high, I have not found a way to adjust it. It is a bit of hit and miss to completely center the boom, but doesn't matter much if the pin finds its hole. I have had success to lower the boom with the housing nearly centered, and I then "wiggle" the housing a little left and right to fully insert the pin (no need to use your hand, this can be done with the crane's motor). Once that is done, I have not had problems in turns or even S-turns between 24611/12.

- in your pictures, I see that your large crane hook is still hanging in the air and is not resting on the flat car. It seems to make a difference if the hook is fully resting (with a little bit of cable slack) on the car and if the boom cables also have some slack. Having the hook hang in the air and the boom cable still under tension seems to restrict the boom when turning.

...no, I have not yet used the smoke generator...

Cheers,

Phascolarctos
Golden Maerklin Jubilee on Christmas 2018

QQQ1970:

> How to make cable slack?

you allow the motor that operates the cable drum to run a little longer than needed* - don't immediately stop when the boom reaches the resting cradle. Same with the cable for the hook. I usually let it hang 5 mm (1/4 inch) underneath the boom when I put the boom down. If the hook is directly under the boom when the boom is still up (two inches or so), the hook will be tight when you settle the boom into the cradle. When "slacking" the cable, just don't overdo it...

*one thing you might have noticed: It is always difficult to remember which turn direction on your controller (I use the CS2) lifts the hook or the boom, which direction lowers it when I haven't used it for a while...

I just got back up from the basement: The Piko BR 82 was able to pull the crane train all the way through all turns and curves with the crane at the end of the train and the boom car even between the locomotive and the crane, i.e. the "most likely" to derail if the crane causes too much friction. If the cables are too tight, I was able to reproduce the same derailing of the flat car that you photographed. During my testing, the boom was "somewhat" turned to the right when looking from the housing. I also noticed that the Maerklin BR V36 Dieselloco had some problems pulling the train up a little incline (I had never done that before), i.e. it may be too weak for this train and its somewhat rigid bogey.

Cheers,

Phascolarctos

Hi QQQ1970:

Sorry for the delay in answering, but I took my crane train out onto the rack and did some testing tonight.

The results were that the crane and its train negotiate the R1 curves and 24611/12 S-switches and curved switches and other combinations I can throw at it if pulled, in bot directions (loco - cars - crane - boom car - cars; loco - cars - boom car - crane - cars) without problems. All cars have Maerklin short-couplers.

The results were not as consistent when pushing the crane. Previously, I probably had unconsciously avoided the more challenging track combinations. The train would pass R1 curves and 24611/12 S turns if there is sufficient track leading up to it without switches. If a series of switches has to be passed, especially curved switches, it is a bit hit-and-miss. Sometimes it passes, sometimes it derails at the same location it has passed before.

The chances of passing are higher, and I get consistent "passing grades", if I drive slow. If nothing else, try to minimize the amount of time you have to push the train when moving to the worksite - something that would be more realistic, anyway. The train is pulled to the worksite, the cars are uncoupled, and just the crane (even without the boom car) is shunted to the worksite.

I haven't spend much time on the why, but it may be due to a loose coupler of the boom car that moves up and down, leading to a less stiff joint. As a result, the boom car pushes the next car with its buffer (and not the coupler) - although prototypical, this may cause it to lever it from the track. You will have noticed that the boom car has somewhat larger buffer disks - perhaps intentionally?...

I noticed that the couplers of the boom car move up and down, which is unusual, likely because the car's under-frame does not fit well with the top. Perhaps because its metal weight is a bit tall, preventing the top from fully seating. I actually got better results when I removed the metal weight and drove without it.

I will do a bit more testing this weekend and try to minimize how much the couplers can move up and down. I will report back what I find...

Cheers,

Phascolarctos

Jim and QQQ1970:

I think I was able to teach my crane some manners.

In my last post, I had written that the reason for the derailing when pushing the crane might be that the coupler has too much vertical play. I was able to confirm that. When I unclipped the top of the boom car from its frame, I noticed that the "dovetail" that guides the coupler had too much room to move up from its slot at the tail end. This led to the vertical movement of the coupler, which in turns caused the derailing when the car was "levered" from the tracks.

I added a small piece of cardboard on top of the dovetail, and now the coupler can no longer slip from its guidance pocket. An extensive test run on my tracks was successful. But before I post instructions, I want to play around some more with ideas to perhaps improve. I have also posted a question on Stummi to see if someone has had similar experiences. And I will also approach Maerklin, but will need some more data before I do so.

Cheers,

Phascolarctos.

Well, that is all more good information on this beautiful crane.

I can see that I will need to approach its use carefully and take the time to learn how it operates and how to avoid issues with it. That would be unacceptable in a series production loco but seems a lot more reasonable in a special item like this. I do know that I really want to avoid unspooling the cables, because it can't be a lot of fun to fix that problem and there are no brick and mortar options available to me, so I am mostly my own service department.

Did your problem happen just by moving your crane around your layout, which caused excessive cable slack and then the slack caused the cable to unspool?

Thanks for you honest appraisal - no one likes to admit that their MRR problems were caused by their own actions, although when I look back I can often see where I went wrong. As usual it would be helpful if Märklin shared more detailed usage suggestions but I am not holding my breath. I emailed the NA digital folks about exactly what those CVs do but so far I have not gotten an answer.

I am still waiting for my crane but I am guessing that some small initial cable slack will allow the boom to move freely as long as the base swivel can move as intended. It does not sound like your crane boom is currently doing that but it also seems like a fairly easy thing to fix. Hopefully your dealer can sort that out without a long service visit to Germany.


I had an entire train picked out for the Goliath crane which I did not end up buying. This discussion will hopefully lead me to figuring out what loco and cars might best accompany the basic three unit crane set.

Thanks for those pictures!

I have a Class 50 which is underutilized at the moment, so that would make a good choice for me too!

Thanks for the note. I am waiting for my dealer principal to respool the cable and fix the boom tolerance issue.

So far I tried and changing acceleration delay or max speed value doesn't seem to change the crane housing rotation speed.

That ESU car is too long for my layout.

There is no turtle icon ex factory

Thanks. This is very informative. I try to stay true to the prototype so maybe I should look for a MCi43.

Legless: It is correct that cranes were sometimes used in pairs, but since there were only four of the Ardelt 57t cranes scattered throughout West-Germany, it is unlikely that they had been used together with the EHG incident response cars. If a crane was needed, the incident response car would already have been on site, and the crane with its own train consist would have been brought in as needed. Today, the era 6 DB has so few cranes, that they have to bring them through half of Germany when needed.

QQQ1970:

Just today, this web-link was posted

https://www.drehscheibe-...ren/read.php?017,8944931

with some photos of the "smaller 25t brother" of our 57t crane and a link to a youtube sound-file of that 25t steam crane. It was recorded in 1979 during the replacement of a bridge by two cranes. You will hear a compressor throughout the whole recording, and the occasional sound of the 25t's steam engine. Of interest is that they combined the steam crane with a modern hydraulic crane (the yellow crane in the photos). In the 1980s, I twice watched the replacement of a bridge by two of the yellow cranes. These cranes can move by themselves, contrary to the Ardelt crane.

And I did some searching of the usual suspect websites for some suitable cars for a crane train. I did not check whether Reynaulds has the respective cars in stock, though:

https://www.reynaulds.co...roducts/Brawa/49024.aspx

This is a G10 box car, painted green as a maintenance tool car, although it is lettered as an era 4 car. These maintenance cars were still in green colors at the beginning of era 4, and even later would not have been painted in era 4 blue, because they would have been scrapped rather soon.

https://www.reynaulds.com/products/Roco/76166.aspx

This is a three-car freight train set which includes the MCi43 as a caboose, era 3. The other two cars of the set may be of interest, too.

https://www.reynaulds.co...ucts/Liliput/235072.aspx

Another era 3 maintenance tool car.

If I remember correctly, Reynaulds charges for replacing DC wheels against Maerklin AC wheels. However, especially with the somewhat challenging crane, you want the cars to be on their best behavior and not contribute to derailments (in which case you'll need the incident response car, although the salvage crane would already be on site ;-)

Perhaps this is of interest...

Cheers,

Phascolarctos

Update on steam crane: while dealer principal can respool the cable, he cannot fix the boom swing issue so he will exchange my steam crane with a new one from the next shipment.

Dealer will test the crane before handing over to me. From the few posters who own the crane, seems like mine is an one off but there are insufficient data points to validate that.

Although I don't read German I am aware of the guy who posted his bent support car. I look at mine and although it looks like bent, at closer examination I find the side panel is molded as trapezoidal form to give a look it is bent due to heavy use.

I also saw the video which suggests the crane can negotiate R1 curve.

Did the dealer mention what is the fault?

Sorry, no. I will ask next time I talk to them.



I do like cranes myself. (have several including 49950+49954.) And I did really fall for the 49570. I don’t have any issues with the goliath’s as long as I give them a bit extra wire slack in parking position.

bph, did you check with dealer what went wrong with the cranes?

It was a decoder issue apparently.

Update: I finally got the replacement steam crane last night. Dealer tested the crane before handing over to me. I test all functions this morning and it works. Of course, I check the boom swing which was well documented here and it looks smooth. Later I'll rest the boom on the flat car and give the cable some slack and see if it can negotiate R1 curves.

For now, hope you enjoy the video.

Marklin steam crane in action

Sebastian

Edited by user 11 November 2019 11:41:09(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thanks Sebastian - it is reassuring to hear that! I finally have mine now but it has been a couple of weeks already and I have no idea right now when I can give it a go.

I can say that it looks just as beautiful as it did in the Märklin pictures and it is clearly a top contender on the layout for the most amazing model, as it should be for the cost.

A fully remote controllable and power operated crane has been a dream of mine since I was a kid - I can't wait to see what this beauty can do.

But first - so much to do as autumn approaches.

After testing the crane, I start to take a look at the accessories. Just wonder if someone can shed some light on the following:

1. There is a counterweight part included in the package. Where am I supposed to store that part when the crane is not in operation? I recall I read somewhere the lower counterweight is stored in the crane chassis but I can't find a spot where it would fit. Anyone has idea?

2. Prototypically, is it correct to install the counterweight on the crane when not in use?

3. Has anyone put the counterweight on the crane during crane operation and does it help the weight balance?

Sebastian