TELE CRAWLERS Ӏ SECTOR REPORT
AND SHINE RISE
A dramatic growth in demand shows that the world is, at last, waking-up to the tele crawler, says Cranes Today contributor Stuart Anderson.
As readers of Cranes Today over many years will recognise, I have long been a strong advocate of the tele crawler crane. Until quite recently it sometimes seemed I was banging my head against a brick wall. But no longer! Seems that everywhere you look they are the product on everyone’s lips. The upsurge in interest is being driven not only by customer recognition and fast developing sales volumes but also by an unparalleled roll- out of new products. And it truly is a global phenomenon with, for a change, a surge in demand for these (relatively) new crane types not being primarily-driven
An all-Sany- machine jobsite in China. China is the world’s largest tele crawler market and, this year, is expected to take around 400 tele crawlers from Sany alone
by customers in Europe, the US or Japan – but most especially by buyers in China and SE Asia. As many will know, the tele crawler had its birth over 50 years ago with the first Grove (1967) and Coles (1968) before Kato developed the first truly successful machine (NK 160C) in 1971. Spandeck Mantis (now Tadano) of Franklin, Tennessee was the next significant entrant with the ‘Turtle’ designed in 1977 by one of America’s great crane engineers – Bud Van de Hey. Over the years there has barely been a single mobile crane manufacturer across the globe that has been
able to resist the lure of developing one of these ‘amalgams’/‘hybrids’. Over the years notable entrants have included IHI (1988 – with the first mini – CCH 50T), Hitachi (1991: another mini - the EX 60T), Sumitomo (1990 LS-118RHT – the first crawler with a telescopic lattice boom), Liebherr (1990 with what is still the largest – the 800t LTR 1800), 1993 (Bendini 50 Beta), 1995 (Hitachi-Sumitomo SCX 400T using a Link-Belt boom), 1997 (Sennebogen 613R), 2000 (Kobelco TK 550 – the first truly heavy duty crane in this class), 2006 (70-tonne Marchetti Sherpa with outrigger supports), 2007 (XCMG XGC 55T), 2007 (Link- Belt TCC 450), 2007 Sany (SCC 1100TB), 2008 (FUWA), 2009 (Sunward) and most recently 2019 (Demag GTC 1800EX GTC 2000) and 2021 (Zoomlion ZCT 900). As if that list of some 20 players isn’t sufficient to trace the history, there are another 30 players taking the total number of participants to date to 50 – and growing. However, as someone once
said, there are statistics and then there are facts. Beyond the early trailblazers its clear that just a handful of these cranes actually changed the market and crane development history. Undoubtedly first of these was the 16-tonne Kato NK 160C – arguably the first
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