Containercrane at Lohseplatz

Model of a simple and compact container terminal crane.

Searching for completely different things in the web, I found some pictures of a quite compact and simple container crane and though that is exactly what would be needed for container terminals on most and always space restricted model railway layouts. The original crane was ones a part of a small container terminal in an industrial area in Hamburg, that replaced the main goods yard in 1999, that itself replaced the largest passenger station arranged there before the main station took over in 1906. The terminal itself and the industrial area became history shortly after 2013 and the “Lohseplatz” (what means square) was 2015 transformed into “Lohsepark”, a recreational park for the residents of the newly built residential area "Hafencity".

I must thank Christoph Bellin, Martina Nolte and some unknown photographers for their photos of the now gone crane, and I have to thanks Google for their historic maps where I could find really fantastic satellite images from 2006 and 2013, that I could use to define the dimensions of the crane.

The model was designed for n-scale (1:160) and printing with FDM with 0.2mm nozzle and minimal layer height of 0.06mm. Than I made larger versions for other gauges, namely British/Japanese n-gauge (1:150), TT (all still must be printed with 0.2mm nozzle), H0&OO (0.4mm nozzle, but for some outfitting parts more delicate versions are available for printing with 0.2mm nozzle) and finally S-gauge (1:64) and 0-gauge/7mm (1:43.5, 1:45 or 1:48). For the larger scales I made some corrections to details for better fitting.

Use of smooth PEI-plate is essential and especially for smaller scales very good bed adhesion is a must. Please clean your building plate well. My prints were made using matt PLA.

If you like to make ladders and railings even more delicate, there are parts designed to be printed in resin (in 1:160, for other scales, please scale up in your slicer program).

A building instruction is provided as PDF-file.

Container you may use in connection with crane you may find here:
https://www.printables.com/model/855086-parametric-iso-container-in-h0-scale-187

In addition to the crane itself there are special street plates designed for n-scale, compatible to KATO’s Unitram tracks or the goods yard:
https://www.katomodels.com/product/n/freight_depot
My street plates contain rails for the crane and bumpers for both the rail track and the crane tracks. To cover the both n-scales, two versions of the street plates are available for 1:160 and 1:150.
If you need more street plates for your terminal, you may also use my previous designs:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7353268
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6569907

And I created also streetplates with crane rails and a bumper/plate for the TOMIX fine track and running bus system, again in versions 1:150 and 1:160. If you need more material you may use earlier published designs here
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7353251
and may be there is comming more in future.

Please note:
“Kato”, “Unitram” and “Unitrack” are trademarks of K.K. Sekisui Kinzoku, Japan and
“Tomix”, „Fine Track” and “Tomytec” are trademarks of TOMY TEC CO., LTD., Japan
Trademarks are used for reference only. The design presented here is neither supported nor authorised by the before mentioned trademark holders.

Please note the license:
My design is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license, which means that you can freely use this model for any non-commercial purpose and may remix this model freely as long as you provide attribution and share with the same creative commons license. Feel free to contact me if any questions.