MTH ELECTRIC TRAINS

The crane tender had two jobs: to protect the crane’s boom and enable it to be coupled with other cars on the way to a wreck site, and to carry the tools, chains, slings and other gear needed to clear a wreck. Unlike the crane itself, which was a precision piece of gear made by a specialized company, the crane tender was usually a home-built affair, cobbled together from whatever a railroad’s shop crew had lying around. Our model represents a typical such car, built from an older flatcar and part of an obsolete or wreck-damaged outside-braced wooden box car, now functioning as an equipment shed.

The rest of a typical wreck train usually had the same hand-me-down look. Passenger and freight cars no longer fit for revenue service were recycled into crew, equipment, and tool cars for wreck and maintenance of way service.