Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

I acknowledge that my last blog bored most of us to tears, so  this Friday afternoon just before the office beer fridge gets cracked open for the weekend I thought I’d follow it up with a topic even the E&Ms might enjoy.

Hopefully some of you will remember Fred’s blog a few months back in which he essentially implied he had designed use of one of the worlds largest land based crane systems during a morning coffee break. I had the joy of visiting Freds crane earlier this week on CPD. It really is impressively large. See below some photos and a few basic stats I picked up whilst there.

Its currently supporting removal of very large reinforced concrete beams as part of the demolition job on the Earls Court Job. The demolition package alone, including this crane, has a contract value circa 28 million quid.

In its strongest configuration the Crane can lift 5000 tonne. On this project the greatest load they will lift is just under 1600 tonne.

The load is transferred to ground through steel pads onto a compacted earth foundation and generates a bearing stress of 0.28MPa.

Giant lifting tackle, required just to assemble the crane.

The crane moves when the grey hydraulic jacks drag the legs along the rail. The silver disks are Teflon pads which create a low friction channel. The gang genuinely lubricate these runners with washing up liquid before each move.

The crane has a maximum operational reach of around 130metres. At this range it can lift approximately 300 Tonnes. When you consider a standard tower crane can lift roughly 3-4 tonnes at a maximum reach of about 70m these are impressive stats.

All these fancy figures aside, for me the most impressive implication is that deciding to use this crane has saved the sub contractor, or so they say, 3 years on their demolition programme. I hope the person who actually came up with this plan got an appropriate bonus for his lightbulb moment!