One of the questions that people regularly ask me is what happened to the cranes that used to be in the sidings by the Tesco Superstore?

I always say “do you mean the two large steam railway cranes?”

“Yes,” they reply with a glimmer of hope in their eye.

“Can you remember them, being parked up there for years? Then in early 2006 they disappeared overnight!”

The two cranes were painted a bright red with white hatched lines on them.

These were special 45-ton heavy lifting cranes built during the Second World War to cope with any bomb damage to railway rolling stock and to ensure that the railway lines feeding supplies to the D-Day beaches would remain open. A batch of 16 were built by Ransomes and Rapier for the Government and the GWR took delivery of four of them for use in their company. Two of the 16 built were based at Swindon. Some were specifically for military use.

Out of the total, nine are preserved and can be found on various heritage railways around the country.

It is possible to find them in various stages of restoration and some have been restored to full working order.

The cranes were designed to go anywhere on Britain’s railways and had to take account of the restricted tunnel widths and height on the south coast line yet be able to lift their maximum load safely and without toppling down embankments.

They were mounted on specially built bogies to enable the weight of the cranes to be distributed evenly across all the axles.

When in services the cranes’ boilers were kept lit at all times and cleaners and other staff were tasked with checking the fires during their shift.

If the fire went out the person responsible was for the high jump as the cranes were kept ready 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Swindon ones were the last steam cranes in use on British railways and were withdrawn in the late 1980s.

They remained in Swindon until about 1989. The two were numbered ADRR95209, which was moved to Tyseley locomotive centre in 2006, and ADRR95210, which went to the Southall Railway Centre at the same time.

I can say to those whose curiosity needs to be satisfied that the cranes were not scrapped, and both underwent restoration.