Getting a better understanding of rail-mounted gantry cranes is important if you are thinking of purchasing one of these cranes for your business. The more thoroughly you understand what these cranes are and how they work, the more capable you will be of buying a model that will work well for your needs.
A good starting point is to learn about the basic design of these cranes. Gantry cranes are standalone cranes that are mounted on their own two legs. A horizontal beam connects the top of the legs. A hoist moves from one side of the crane to the other along the beam using an attached trolley.
A wire rope or cable that hangs down from the hoist can be attached to loads anywhere underneath the crane. Those loads can then be lifted into the air and moved around to different positions before being set back down again.
As you probably already guessed, some container gantry cranes like these are mounted on rails. That means that they have special metal wheels attached to the bottom of each of their legs. These wheels are designed to run on tracks. The concept is similar to a train. Instead of moving freely over the ground, the cranes are limited to only moving on the tracks.
One question that you may have is why you should choose a crane that runs on tracks rather than one mounted on rubber tires. With rubber tires, the crane could go anywhere, which seems like it would make it a lot more versatile.
While that may be true, cranes with metal wheels have one thing that rubber-tired cranes are lacking: they are usually capable of carrying heavier loads. The tires themselves are sturdier, providing extra support for any weight that the crane is lifting.
Being mounted on tracks also makes these cranes extremely efficient. They can quickly and easily move to any point along the length of the tracks, allowing them to rapidly change position. Since they always move along the same path, collisions with obstacles are less likely than they would be with a crane that moved directly over the ground. After all, it is highly unlikely that anyone would place an obstacle directly on the tracks.
Cranes like these are commonly used in container yards for stacking and moving shipping containers. Since they are so strong, they can be extremely wide, allowing them to span multiple rows of containers. They also can be quite tall, with some of the tallest cranes being able to stack as many as five or six containers on top of one another.
Hopefully, this gives you a better understanding of rail-mounted gantry cranes. These cranes are a good choice for applications involving extremely heavy lifting. They often have high lifting capacities thanks to their sturdy, durable metal wheels.
They are a good fit for situations where the crane moves along the same path over and over again. Once the rails are in place, moving the crane around is easy, providing an extremely efficient way to lift and transport heavy items.