Here's a 12 minute video from March 3, 2024 of the recovery operation in Northampton County Pennsylvania of the Norfolk Southern Locomotive 8157.
Is there anybody here that was part of the recovery effort that could add some information about the machines?
The big white cranes are "Mantis" cranes, especially built and modified for railroad derailment cleanup work. Those, along with the Cat track hoes, belong to "Cranemasters". Cranemasters is in the heavy equipment recovery business, as well as the railroad derailment cleanup business. The company was originally Issringhausen, probably misspelled, and cleaned up train wrecks. Hulcher Services bought out the original company, that used side booms for derailment cleanup. Part of the deal was an agreement that they would not go back into competition using sidebooms in wreck work. ( I am friends with one of the retired Hulcher VP's involved in this buyout.) They then developed the cranes for cleaning up derailments and went back into that business. The sidebooms belong to Hulcher Services. Cranemasters is growing rapidly and a few years ago opened western US locations, and continues to grow. They have developed some innovative lifting cradles for picking up derailed tank cars, without doing more damage.
I believe these big cranes can be moved to a derailment in only two loads. One load is the crane itself, and the tracks/frames are moved on a second truck. They can be reassembled on site in under an hour. The Cat hoes and the Mantis cranes all have heavy duty winches. You can read about the cranes on the Cranemaster website. I understand it can take over a year from order time, until delivery, of these Mantis machines.
Jeff
