Bunhill: No Vorsprung durch Technik in Port Talbot

IN A WEEK in which German financial engineering supposedly scuppered the pound, it was a relief to discover that the other kind of engineering for which Germany is famous is not infallible.

Little publicity has attended the fact that the world's biggest land-based mobile crane, built in Germany, keeled over on the August bank holiday weekend, just after it had completed its first paying job at British Steel's Port Talbot works, in South Wales.

The 2,000-tonne, pounds 7m pedestal crane - owned by the BET subsidiary Grayston, White and Sparrow - was standing idle after a big lift on a blast furnace rebuilding job.

'At the time of the incident there were no personnel on site, no injury was sustained by any person nor was there any damage to property,' a spokeswoman at BET Plant Services said.

A joint team from Grayston's and the builders, Demag Baumaschinen of Zweibrucken, has examined the wreckage of the 70-metre-long lattice boom, which appears to have been blown down by a gust of wind when it was not lifting anything. Grayston said that the investigation is not yet complete.

An advertising campaign, selling the crane to the British construction and engineering industry, is now running in trade magazines, announcing the crane's arrival in Britain as 'a giant step from the world leader', offering lifts of over 1,000 tonnes with a machine that can be moved by road on its own multi-axle trailer and move about on site when fully rigged for lifting.

Presumably the pounds 7m has already been added to the British trade deficit.

(Photograph omitted)