Lots of work for the new and largest crawler crane in Switzerland – the new Liebherr LR 1750/2 operated by Fanger proves its worth on its first job

With its purchase of this new powerful 750-tonne class crawler crane, Fanger Kran AG opened a whole new chapter in the history of lifting equipment stationed in Switzerland. At the same time the family-run company remained true to its tradition – when it purchased a Liebherr LR 1400 crane in 1997, Fanger also presented the most powerful crawler crane in Switzerland at the time. It was used to complete the hoisting work for many large Swiss projects such as bridge and tunnel construction work. The new machine will now replace this old crane which is almost twenty years old.

Liebherr service technicians permanently on site

The Fanger team led by Project Manager Josef Waser was confronted with a tricky task for the crane's first job. An enormous cylinder in the production plant of a wooden materials manufacturer had to be replaced in difficult conditions and under time pressure. Because the plant's production had to be stopped for the duration of the work, for the customer it was extremely important to have the job completed quickly and smoothly. This was also the reason that crane driver Tony Burch had a service technician from Liebherr available for assembling the new crane and throughout the completion of the job.

The specialists from Fanger completed the work using the new machine with great care and routine. Before the old cylinder was hoisted out of the plant, an auxiliary platform first had to be hoisted in and installed. After the steel drum had been pulled out of the plant onto this platform, the hanging gear with a weight of around 30 tonnes was attached to the load. To hoist the gigantic tube out of the production plant, the radius of 31 metre had to be reduced slightly and a total of 270 tonnes had to be hoisted to an initial hook height of 64 metres. Only in this position the crawler gear could be carefully set in motion. Whilst the crane completed the distance of around 15 metres, the massive steel cylinder was swung over silos and factory buildings and then deposited on the ground.

The LR 1750/2 crawler crane was fitted with the remarkable figure of 575 tonnes of ballast for this job and for the installation of the new component two days later. The suspended ballast on the derrick boom alone weighed 360 tonnes, which is close to maximum.

"The crane is fantastic"

Over the next few years the main area for use of the crane in its silver-grey livery will be hoisting work for bridge construction projects. The management team at Fanger showed great business acumen when purchasing this more powerful crawler crane as demonstrated perfectly by the fact that the company's order books for the LR 1750/2 are filled up to the end of the year. "We would not have been able to complete the work waiting for this crane this year with our LR 1400 or at least not in this form", says Josef Waser. After making its debut in Lucerne, the crane has a bridge to dismantle at Lake Zurich and bridge supports weighing 240 tonnes to hoist in Dietikon. By the end of the year Fanger's new flagship will have to demonstrate all its abilities for bridge projects in the Jura, in Berne and in Wallis. All of them are jobs to which crane driver Tony Burch is looking forward to with confidence: "The crane is fantastic."

Since the end of last year, Liebherr has been marketing an improved version of its very successful LR 1750. The most obvious change apart from a more comfortable driver's cabin is the significantly extended derrick boom which now measures 38 metres in length. The larger pivot section on the LR 1750/2 achieves lifting capacity increases of up to 30 percent in some set-up configurations when operating the main boom. The new version of the 750-tonne crawler crane from Ehingen has proved a great success, with 15 LR 1750/2 models being delivered to Liebherr customers in its first year.