Gantry Cranes

These machines are astounding!  They are called "container handling gantry cranes" and they are used for loading and unloading intermodal containers from container ships.  I photographed these in Long Beach, California, when the ferry to Santa Catalina island was heading down the Los Angeles River and out through the harbor.  These things are huge!  You can see some containers on the left side of the photograph, and each one is twenty feet tall.  So do the math.  When a ship docks for loading, the crane part which is at an angle here, will come down to the horizontal position, and start lifting containers either on or off the ships.  I love this photograph because it looks at these machines as sculptures.  Please click on the image to see it in more detail.