>Whatever happened to the Key System's "DOANE" Crane that I believe was owned by Howard Wolfe.
>I remember many years ago it was brought to the Junction on its own tires.
>It was a site to see. Painted in NCL "fruit salad colors" like the trains and buses, it had a CHAIN drive and solid-rubber tires. The day came for the big move--believe it was on a Sunday morning.
>I heard it went from the late Norm Borgwardt's house in Lafayette to the Junction site by a VERY circuitous route, escorted by the CHP. WHY ???? Because the top speed was only about 12 1/2 miles per hour and it was REALLY quite a site going down the highway. I always wondered if any one took photos or films of that move !!

"Nightmare Alice". Don't know about the CHP escort, but it did drive itself to Rvj, via the River Road, using passenger car plates because HTW welded the rotat>Whatever happened to the Key System's "DOANE" Crane that I believe was owned by Howard Wolfe.
>I remember many years ago it was brought to the Junction on its own tires.
>It was a site to see. Painted in NCL "fruit salad colors" like the trains and buses, it had a CHAIN drive and solid-rubber tires. The day came for the big move--believe it was on a Sunday morning.
>I heard it went from the late Norm Borgwardt's house in Lafayette to the Junction site by a VERY circuitous route, escorted by the CHP. WHY ???? Because the top speed was only about 12 1/2 miles per hour and it was REALLY quite a site going down the highway. I always wondered if any one took photos or films of that move !!

"Nightmare Alice". Don't know about the CHP escort, but it did drive itself to Rvj, using passenger car plates because HTW welded the rotating part of the crane to the bed, making it all one piece. It is a Universal (brand) crane, 3 digit serial number, on a Doane truck chassis, both of which have 4 cylinder Continental engines with magneto ignition. It has chain-jackshaft drive and solid rubber tires. By law, the max speed limit in Calif when you have solid rubber tires is 25 MPH, because any faster, and the rubber overheats, creating bubble, which lead to a blowout. From what I've been given to understand, 25 mph for the Doane truck is flat out, downhill, with a tailwind. The chain and jackshaft drive is NOT suited for off pavement use. BTDT all too many times.

It's biggest drawback was that to use the brake to lower a load, you first had to go through full release before the brake took hold.ing part of the crane to the bed (temporarily), making it all one piece and therefore eligible for passenger car plates at the time. It is a Universal (brand) crane, 3 digit serial number, on a Doane truck chassis, both of which have 4 cylinder Continental engines with magneto ignition, which will run on the worst, old, stale gasoline imaginable. It has chain-jackshaft drive and solid rubber tires. By law, the max speed limit in Calif when you have solid rubber tires is 25 MPH, because any faster, and the rubber overheats, creating bubbles in the rubber, which lead to blowouts. From what I've been given to understand, 12 or 15 mph for the Doane truck is flat out, downhill, with a tailwind (ISTR that it has two or three [floor] gearshift levers and an 8 speed trans mission). The chain and jackshaft drive is NOT suited for off-pavement use because the chains come off the sprockets all to readily. BTDT all too many times (at night in the mud). The Key System always used it in town (on pavement). When HTW bought it, it was a question of it or one of the two flatcar mounted cranes, one of which had a small track on the flatcar deck and could drive itself back and forth a little bit. In the end it came down to what would be most useful at a place like RVJ, which the "Doane" definitely wasn't ideal. One of those flatcar-mounted (electric) cranes just might have been better.

It's biggest drawback was that to use the brake to lower a load, you first had to go through full release before the brake took hold.