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THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF COLES CRANES

This site is about cranes, in particular Coles Cranes and the history of Coles. This site came about because of my involvement with Coles in the early seventies. For full details of this see the section "About This Site" below. This site will discribe somthing about mobile cranes, the history and lots of pictures of Coles Cranes along with some intresting little technical details.

Coles Cranes stopped trading in 1984 and is now only a part of crane history. This site is dedicated to remembering what was once one of the largest crane manufacturing companies in the world.

GREAT FIND most unexpected. One of the very first Hydraulic Cranes ever made, a mile stone in the story of Coles. It is a Neals 6 ton HyMax, the name HyMax is well known but to find two of these machines still working is amazing. Many thanks to their owner Mr Geoff Lee of Cookson & Zinn (PTL) Ltd for providing the photographs.

You can select here or the image to go straight to details of this model.

New additions and update notices will be placed here.
Last update : 25/10/2009 Hydra Husky database updated and extended.History of hydraulics updated and enlarged.


I'm putting together a history of Neals so amy photographs of any of Neals cranes would be welcome especially the older ones.




CRANE TYPE HISTORY & DATABASE
The core of this site is now the type database where there is an attempt at a full listing of all Coles cranes with photographs where possible with relevant details of each type.
Also here is an outline of the history of the group types and what they were designed to do.

THE HISTORY OF COLES CRANES
Coles Cranes started in 1879 and went on to be a world company only closing 119 years later 1998, when taken over by Grove cranes. Follow this story in words, pictures and timeline.
There is the full history of Coles and short historys companys Coles took over.


CATALOGUE LISTS OF COLES CRANES
This section has been updated and now includes lists and details of cranes from various catalogues from different periods of Coles history. Currently there are Port Cranes from 1956 and the General catalogue from 1970 as well as the basic list from starting at 1964.
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PICTURE HISTORY TIME LINE
A time line showing when certain models of the basic cranes were developed and introduced by Coles over the years.

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TECHNICAL
Technical stuff about how and why of cranes. An outline of Crane Types. Crane part discriptions. Jib and Boom details. Slew ring history.


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SPOTLIGHT
These pages shine a spotlight on individual cranes where there is additional infromation or photographs that give a better or intresting profile of specific crane or type of crane.




TOY COLES CRANES
A section dedicated to the toys that have been made based on types of Coles cranes. Here we see Dinky, and other die-cast models, Meccano, Lego and some serious makers.


THE WORKS MODELS
Here we take as a starting point the scale models made at the Sunderland works. What these models were for and how they relate to the full sized cranes produced by Coles. These include historical Coles cranes, current types and prototype models.




ABOUT THIS SITE
How this site came about. How I came to be the model maker to Coles at Sunderland and a look at the Sunderland works. Find out what the odd looking machine to the left has to do with this story.
The story begins.....

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COLES CROWN WORKS - SUNDERLAND
Details of the main Coles works at Sunderland. Details about where it is and some photographs of the factory from when it was in full production in 1968




CONTACT
How to contact me about any information you have on Coles cranes, photos, make corrections, or ask any crane related questions.

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