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When shopping for knuckleboom cranes, buyers have much to consider in deciding which class size they should buy. Because the purchase is for an entire crane package, even the chassis must be part of the equation. Manufacturers says the irst consideration is reach, followed by load. Once those two factors are determined, everything else, including the truck chassis on which the crane will be mounted, will fall into place.

A large Rough Terrain crane working on an overpass in Tacoma, Washington tipped over yesterday bringing work to a halt. The crane, a 100 ton (91 tonne) three axle Link Belt TC80100 owned by Mid Mountain contractors of Kirkland Washington, was working on the laying of the last segment of track for the Sounder commuter rail extension that will run from Tacoma to Lakewood in 2012.

New figures published in the UK this week show the number of employees killed in the UK construction industry last year has increased for the first time in four years. The Health and Safety Executive has released provisional data for the year to March 2011 which shows the number of workers killed was 50, an increase on the previous year, when 41 died – the majority on smaller construction sites. This is the first rise in deaths since 2006/7 when there were 79 fatalities .

A tower crane operator died yesterday at London’s Olympic Village site in Stamford while climbing down from his cab. The man, said to be 65, was discovered in the tower of his crane, some feedback from the site suggests that he may have slipped and fell causing serious head injuries.

Small employers and owner/operators of cranes are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to complying with OSHA’s new Cranes and Derricks in Construction rule. To a degree, it’s simply a manpower issue—these individuals have to wear many hats besides crane owner and operator, including salesperson, accountant, and safety director.

The team at Facelift took a special ultra high resolution photograph at Vertikal Days this week.

Lifting Technologies, headquartered in Missoula, Montana has a nice working relationship with Industrial Training International. They supply crane suspended manbaskets at ITI Training Centers in Woodland, Washington and Memphis, Tennessee while hundreds of project engineers, operators, and riggers utilize them each year in crane and rigging training programs.

Terex says that its new Challenger 3180 all terrain is the only 3-axle, 60-tonne capacity class machine currently available that is designed for one-man operation. The new machine also represents a new approach for naming crane models, based on load moment rating rather than maximum safe working load.
Across the industry, the model names of mobile cranes have for years indicated their maximum rated capacity, such as the AC 60 – 60t capacity – which the new Challenger 3180 replaces in the Terex product line up.

Ten Manitowoc cranes are working on the construction of a remote dam in South Africa. The De Hoop (“The Hope”) Dam will be 81 m tall and stretch more than 1 km over the Steelpoort River in Limpopo, South Africa. It is being built for the South African Department of Water Affairs.

Just when people thought it couldn’t get any smaller, the mini yet mighty Unic spider crane, designed for lifting up to 6 tonnes in restricted access environments, has been dramatically…