Montague Dock - 4 - Installing the Crane Rails

The design and printing of these rails was covered in Gantry Crane Rails.

Here the installation is described, a single design of gantry crane rail was designed such that they would be used in pairs giving a nominal 600mm of track and be fixed firmly to the plywood base of this dock to ensure the cranes would traverse them reliably, which is challenging due to the type of crane wheels.

The buffer bases were painted concrete with the Tamiya Deck Tan, wood blocks as buffers cut from laser cut card kit scrap, and rails next to the buffers painted a rusty brown where the crane wheels would not have reached.

The wide footing of the rails will be covered by dockside surface material.

To align the sets of rails for fixing down a simple alignment gauge was made up to keep them at a constant gauge and aid alignment to the dock edge, this was modelled as :-



A short test piece was printed to ensure it would clip on the rails, followed by one complete gauge to check the gauge width and finally two more for a working set. A set of rails was laid on the grey foam surface with the gauges and the outline for the foam cutouts marked. The foam was then cleaned out down to the plywood base.



The rails and gauges were placed into the cutouts and sat on the plywood, a final test with a crane to ensure the gauge was correct by removing gauges one at a time to allow the crane to sit on the rails. Also to ensure the buffers were in line with each other. With all gauges in place, clearance holes were drilled in the base of the rails and track pins fitted to secure the rails to the board.

Confirmation all was correctly set was performed with the aid of a crane.





The same process was applied for the 2nd set of rails.





Next, Royal Mail Warehouse

Jim

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