This was a pain in the back side to put together but I am really happy with how it came out. I think it makes an interesting terrain piece for my sea port and railway yard.

It reminds me a bit of “Bill the Steam Shovel” that was on the ABC’s “Mr Squiggle” program when I was growing up!

I thought Bill was the star of the show!

These cranes were self propelling and did not need a locomotive.

An English made crane at Port Augusta in South Australia.

Next is the handcar (also known as a pump trolley, pump car, jigger, Kalamazoo, velocipede, or draisine) that is powered by its passengers. They are mostly used as a railway maintenance vehicle. This one is a typical design consisting of an arm, called the walking beam, that pivots, seesaw-like, on a base, which the passengers alternately push down and pull up to move the car.

I have found with the putting together of Sarissa and TTCombat railway pieces that they seem to suffer from the same rail gauge fiasco that Australia did until 1962. Up until then Australia had three different railway gauges and passengers had to alight at the various state borders and take another train fitted for the difference in gauge.

The different tracks at a ‘break of gauge’ railway station at Peterborough, South Australia, now part of the Steamtown Heritage Railway Centre.

It seems that Sarissa use “narrow gauge” and TTCombat use broad gauge! I will now need to make the Gotham Grease and Gunk railway siding a “change of gauge” station!!!!

I have about six feet of Sarissa “narrow gauge” that I will now have to put together. For the moment their carriages are just sitting on the sleepers of the TTCombat track!

With the railway kit distractions now completed (except for the Sarissa track) I can move back to other projects.