This model depicts a vintage  Pontoon or floating crane it has been several months in the making due to me making many changes during the construction. It was originally inspired by a crane in the 1937 No.9 manual that I had intended to build, as I have done with many other blue and gold published models. This model however is of my own creation its a similar size to the Meccano manual but is based on a Pontoon Crane I found browsing the internet (see picture above right), it was built in 1911 by the Dutch company St.Erfgoed Werf Gusto of Schiedam. These cranes were constructed and developed over many years and were used in docks and harbours around the world. A crane named "Mammoth" built for Liverpool docks and harbour board was shown on the front cover of the Meccano Magazine in March 1925 and repeated in April 1936. No doubt this would have been the inspiration for the 1937 No.9 model by the "Model Room" staff at Binns Road picture below right. The lower illustration is from the Meccano Magazine of February 1932 and shows a 250 tonne crane at Bordeaux. Pontoon Cranes would have been found in many  large dock complexes around the world  and were used for handling large or unwieldy cargoes, ship repairs and fitting out ships, harbour wall construction and dredging. The older cranes would have been powered by steam engines, hence the tall funnel. My own model is based on a non-powered  Pontoon crane so it would have been moved  to its operating position by tug(s) some other  cranes would have been self propelled. The cranes are balanced by counter balanced water tanks and were capable of lifting several hundred tonnes. The model is built with original 1930's blue and gold parts the blue cross hatched plates are all original but the gold parts are mainly re-sprayed as are some of the red parts. I have used separate small geared electric motors for each function i.e. Hoist, luffing and slewing operated from a single control box. The model is built more in the style of a manual model rather than an exact scale representation, there was a lot of room for some latitude as every crane I came across was different!

The type of Non-Meccano geared motors used in the crane and easily available on eBay.

Click on the images to bring up larger pictures.

There is a video of the crane’s construction and it operating click on the YouTube logo to view.

This is not the first "Pontoon Crane" I have built, some years ago I constructed the SML28 Pontoon Crane click on the image right. Page first published August 21 2023 Revised 01/11/23