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Report - - The Greenock Titan, Scotland, Dec 17 | Industrial Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - The Greenock Titan, Scotland, Dec 17

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The Amateur Wanderer

28DL Regular User
Regular User
The James Watt Dock Titan Crane, Greenock, December 2017

Introduction:

The first installation from @AndyK and I's Christmas Scotland Trip, the Greenock Titan...

I've always wanted to do at least one of the four remaining Titan Cranes in and around the Glasgow area and so heading up to Scotland I decided to put forward the idea of trying one, or perhaps more of the beasts to Andy who agreed and so we found ourselves travelling along the River Clyde looking at the suitability of each Titan along the way. After a few recces we decided that the most suitable of the four would be the James Watt Dock Titan, and the Clydebank Titan.

After a little deliberation we decided we'd go for the James Watt Dock Titan having found ourselves in Greenock anyway, so we headed over for food and waited for the last light to fade away before attempting the crane. As it turns out the crane really is rather easy to conquer even with active security on the dock and a belly full of Christmas dinner and Guinness :D Provided that your not going to start waving your willy about on top of the gantry, you'd ought to be fine really... Yes Instagram crowd, that was aimed at you...​

History:

History seems a little bit hard to find regarding this, I mean, it is a crane and I don't suppose there's too much to say about a crane really is there?

What I can tell you however is that it was constructed in 1917 by Sir William Arrol and Co and is rated to lift 150 tonnes worth of ship. She was constructed for the purpose of 'fitting out' new ships after the hulls had been floated from local ship yards. Fitting out for those who don't know is essentially in simple terms putting parts of the ship such as the bridge, masts onto an already floating hull.

Pictures:

The night we arrived in Greenock was perfect weather wise, no wind at all and not as chilly as some of the other nights during our trip which got to as low as -2C at time...

The landscape around Port Glasgow and Greenock is something to be admired, we stopped by to take a few before the pub...

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And James Watt Dock with the Titan Crane itself present...

The ship was called the Hebridian Princess, she was a pretty old school looking ship adding to the atmosphere of the dock a little. You can get a good indication of the cranes size when put next to the buildings and ship...

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Close up...

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Right...

Let's head up then!

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Looking out at the snow topped mountains was awesome...

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And rather surprisingly even the road back to Glasgow did as well!

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The turning mechanism for the crane, humongous...

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And a few shots of the gantry itself before heading back down...

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Up on top...

Looking out toward Loch Lomond and the Trossachs

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We'll be back! ;)

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Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as I enjoyed climbing this fine old piece of British Industry.

Cheers!
TAW :)
 
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