Metropolitan Railway Breakdown Crane 1924-66

They were not bogie vans but rigid 8 wheelers, like the carriages. There may have been only one 8 wheeler, the rest were 4 wheels.

Apparently, the complete train comprised some or all of the following:
- a 30(not 20)* ton crane - C604 built in 1924 by Cowans and purchased in 1925
- a 4 wheel jib carrier J682 (ex Met 50, possibly secondhand in 1882, but maybe of 1886), at some stage replaced by ...
- ...J683 of 1919
- tool van BD 700 (ex Met milk van 3) - this is the restored one that we all know and love (a lot!)
- tool van BD701 (ex Met milk van 5)
- BD702, a 4 wheel box van
- BD703, an 8 bogie van
- BD 704 (ex BW251) used as a flat wagon for conveying spare bogies.

I recall a grey livery with some vehicles having red ends to the bodywork in the'50s and early '60s, possibly with London Transport in a silvery grey outlined in black but given the general state of the vehicles , that may well have started out as gold.

Presumably, this vast cavalcade of vehicles rarely turned out all together!

Hope this is helpful...

GH

* Another description of this vehicle says that it was a 50t crane - that would be very unusual for even a main line railway; there can't have been many 50t Met vehicles to be lifted other than the surviving steam locos and normal railway practive would be to have them lifted by two separate cranes.

Thanks to all for the info. I am trying to find a copy of J Graeme Bruce's book "Workhorses of the London Underground" as mentioned by Dennis, but seems to be scarce. There is also an old book on Railway Steam Cranes by Brownlie which apparently has photos of it too.
GH: You have a longer list of vehicles than I have seen anywhere else, thanks for that. We know that the crane was supplied as 20T and later uprated to 30T. The intent is to model the train in Met livery which could have been all vehicles all grey, or crane in Maroon (There is a photo of it lettered and crested) with the vans teak.
Also, what would the crew have travelled in? Was it one of the tool vans, or was an old coach allocated too?
Again, thanks to all, much appreciated.

The crew would have travelled in the mess/brake van, it would have a seating area, a small cooking range (coal) where the messman could cook food and make tea etc.

As the train was based at Neasden, the crew would be part of the met railway workshop staff.

@glyn - I'm pretty sure that in the '50s and '60s, the crane livery was grey with the underlined version of London Transport in a silvery colour (it's possible that that livery started out as black with gold lettering, but I doubt it - virtually all other service stock was grey).

GH

In the relatively recently published 'London Underground Rolling Stock In Colour For The Modeller And Historian' by John Glover (Ian Allan, 2009) there is a colour picture of the crane on page 23. It is clearly black with what looks like gold lining. The tool and running vans are light grey with a broad orange/red band egded in black and with grey ends. The photo is one of Harry Luffs and, although no date is given, it appears to be late 50s/early 60s.. I hope this helps.

Thanks for the lead on the book, I now have a copy. Its a good picture for us in that as well as showing livery it is the first one I have seen from this angle showing the cable drums. Earlier in this thread there is a photo of the breakdown 'train' where the crane is clearly carrying both 'Metropolitan' and the companies coat of arms. We are thinking that this might indicate that at this time its livery is more likely to have been loco maroon(?) with the other vehicles in grey.

The crane was Cowans Sheldon works number 4425 of 1925; the general arrangement drawing was 11287. Order number 4949, drawing 12846 refers for the uprating of capacity.

This machine was virtually the same as CS 3823 of 1917 ( drawing number 9772; the drawing the Mets crane was tendered on ) which still exists in preservation at ZLSM, Simplevald, South Limburg, Nederlands ( after twenty years in store at Leuven, Belgium - it having been ex SNCB ). Dismantled for renovation to working order a couple of years ago - it may be complete by now?

Other photos of this Met Rly crane do exist -
- In Brownlies book Railway Steam Cranes - fig.44.
- In the Ken Nunn collection ( previously vested with the LCGB, now at NRM ) This photo was used in a Backtrack of a few years ago.
- On the web ( flikr - just search Neasden 1954 crane ) - at Neasden in 1954 - a rather head on view of it from the jib carrier end.