Report - The ClydeBank Titan Crane, Glasgow

[Brick_Man]

A cold morning on Clydebank, a small filthy car erupts onto the scene, two suspicous persons emerge from the vehicle and quickly dissapear into a forgotton public building.
Moments later alarms sound and the two suspects re-emerge from the public building with cameras packed full of handheld iso1600 shots and grins stretching from ear to ear.
The pair think better of returning to the vehicle in which they arrived and instead opt a brief assualt on the nearby Titan crane. A last light blue tinted reminder of the very reason that Clydebank even exists.
Its been welded in place, repainted, and hung in brightly coloured LED lighting remininiscent of a late 80's nightclub.
Minutes later the pair are seen atop the structure photographing the astonishing view over the wasteland that was once what brought the people work and pride. But soon the cold sets in and photo opportunities run dry. Time to go, just avoiding the angry locals with their beating sticks, no.5 shovels (thats another story) and mobile telephones.

Only 2 more to go and I have them all :


History..

Titan Clydebank is a 150 feet (46 m) high cantilever crane that was built in 1907 in Clydebank, Scotland.[1] It was designed to be used in the lifting of heavy equipment, such as engines, during the fitting-out of battleships and ocean liners at the John Brown & Company shipyard, then the biggest shipbuilding group in the world.

A £24,600 order for the crane was placed with a Dalmarnock based engineering company, Sir William Arrol & Co. in 1905. The Clydebank Titan was completed two years later.

In the late 1960s, the yard was incorporated into Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS), which collapsed in 1971. It was bought from the receivers by the Marathon Manufacturing Company for oil rig construction. In 1980 Marathon sold the yard to the French company Union Industrielle et d’Entreprise (UiE). UIE's owners, Bouygues Offshore closed the yard in 2001 and the site was earmarked for redevelopment.

In 1988 the crane was recognised as a Category A Listed historical structure. The urban regeneration company Clydebank "Re-Built" started a £3m restoration project in 2005, and the crane opened to the public in time for its 100th birthday in 2007. Following the removal of the Titan crane at Govan, four of these giant cantilever cranes remain on the River Clyde. The others are at Stobcross or Finnieston, Scotstoun or Barclay Curlew and Greenock.

A standing memorial to Clyde shipbuilders amoungst the rubble of its fallen brothers & sisters

King of the Dump

The giant grab machine takes coins from a by-gone era

DownClyde

ClydeBank is actually a satilite from Glasgow, its surrounded by quant farmland and snow covered hills. The view from here when John Browns was in full swing would have been gorgous.

Directions to her remaining steel sisters

150ft to ground zero

OverEngineered

Don't let dodgy turkish men who introduce themselves as "I am barbour see, it on my badge here man" The results won't be pretty.

Main Hoist gear

Huge DC motors for the main hoist and travelling chock (correct term?)

The locals with the sticks and telephones became angry enough for us to take our leave and return to the wailing in the street awaiting us.


http://www.flickr....72157625327188943/
High Res pics and more on FlickR