Athearn H.O Scale Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad 250 Ton steam wrecking crane.

 

Hi everyone!  This is Eddie K, your host and photographer here

at Eddie's Railfan Page.   (A Chicago area transportation site.)

 

I am an avid H.O Scale model railroader myself. Although I mostly

model 1960's and 70's era American freight trains, like the ones

I grew up seeing first hand in Chicago many years ago, I am

starting to develop a little bit of an interest in the non revenue

maintenance of way equipment, as well as the specialized heavy

cranes and equipment used to clear train derailment sites.

 

In the years and days before specialized outside firms like Hulcher Rail

Services ever existed, railroads often performed their own clean ups and

repair operations, and housed several pieces of heavy equipment at most

any system terminal.

 

The 250 ton steam crane shown here, was a very specialized heavy piece

of equipment used to clean up disaster and derailment sites. These were

important pieces of heavy equipment to have on hand..."Just in case."

 

These cranes actually spent most of their time in storage. They were

expensive to operate, and were only used as rarely needed. Diesel

and electric powered wrecking cranes eventually replaced the steam

models, however several steam derricks lasted in to the 1970's on

some railroads, as they were good usable machinery.

 

This Athearn model, is painted in the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe's

1960's era blue and yellow billboard color scheme, which had replaced

the previous all black color scheme.

 

Some wrecking cranes, can be found at the Illinois Railway museum

in Union Illinois www.irm.org, as well as several other railroad museums

across America.

 

I am seriously thinking about adding one of these models to my H.O roster.

 

Thanks.

Eddie k.