MTH - Premier Freight Cars - O Scale Crane Car - 3 Rail

In the early days of railroading, the job of cleaning up a wreck was usually done by men and horses. The first steam wrecking crane, a relatively small affair with a 20-ton lifting capacity, appeared in 1883. Its maker, Industrial Works of Bay City Michigan, introduced a fully revolving model a decade later. As the product became popular, Industrial Works, now renamed Industrial Brownhoist, and its chief competitor, Bucyrus-Erie of South Milwaukee, introduced larger and larger models to cope with increasing locomotive and car weights. By the World War I era, 120 tons was a common size, and by the Second World War, crane sizes topped out at around 250 tons of lifting capacity.