Is this old image one of train track repair?

Question

http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk80/besunny/craneprintblock.jpg

It's an old printer's block,maybe an inch square. Used by printers a long time ago, this is maybe from around 1950.

I inherited it,and am trying to find out what it is. Looks like a crane lifting something, tracks,and some kind of railed structure - a bridge.

I think a lone figure shows also.

At first I thought it might be an auto wrecker lifting junk cars, but I doubt that.

Anyone looking at this different tht has some other view pop up?

Answer 1

This is an overhead gantry hoist the "rails" are I beams, seems to be lifting scrap metal possibly.  

Answer 2

That is most definitely a printing block of a scrap yard. If you look closely at the attachment that the overhead crane is carrying, it is disc-shaped and has objects hanging from the bottom. This very closely resembles the electromagnetic attachments still used by cranes to move scrap metal around today.

Answer 3

That is an elephant being hoisted by a crane. Must be part of a series. I have seen a lot of hot type blocks, but this is a first. Get an ink pad, daub lightly and print on paper. Then photobucket that pic. I'd love to see it!

Answer 4

It's a magnetic crane being used in a scrapyard. It's a travelling hoist type with elevated rails.

Answer 5

Overhead type crane in a shop or constructioin yard. A very large capacity crane I would guess, perhaps in a locomotive shop or shipbuilding area, that is only a guess based on the apparent size of the crane.

The idea of inking it and trying to stamp it is good, worth a try, some details may come out better.

Answer 6

It is an overhead crane, said cranes being part of an installation, so it isn't out on a derailment or doing track work.  Looks to me to be a junk yard of some sort.

Answer 7

The rails you see there are required for the crane, and don't have anything to do with a railroad.  It's not a railroad-related image.

It does sort of evoke the day they hung the elephant, though, doesn't it? Just kidding.  The blobs all around the bottom were surely intended to evoke a "pile of scrap".