Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard

Locomotives have the privilege of being kept undercover, but most of the mobile railway cranes

here are kept in external storage - they are too tall to pass beyond the shipbuilding sheds' façades.

However, when visited on 6th March 2003, they were looking in sound condition. All such cranes

on the site were built by ''Grafton Cranes Ltd'' at Vulcan Works in Bedford. David Glasspool

Chatham Dockyard

The shed on the extreme right, just in view and of an alternate style to those in the foreground,

retains a water-filled basin. The other sheds are now generally used for storing the site's extensive

collection of relics, from railway locomotives and rolling stock, to old road vehicles and boats.

David Glasspool

Chatham Dockyard

On last count there were five of these machines, all six-wheeled and built by Grafton Cranes Ltd.

The mechanisms were powered by a boiler, steam fired like the crane's locomotive counterparts.

The propulsion will become clear in the following picture. David Glasspool

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