Halfway down the Danube

Cranes

The machines, not the birds.

I think I mentioned that Oltenita has no waterfront. What it does have, is a port facility. With cranes. Big ones -- like, 30 or 40 meters tall.

The cranes are old, and they show it. They were made by an East German company in 1966 or maybe 1968 -- the nameplate was so rusted that I couldn't be sure. They're powered by electricity, and there are cables as thick as your arm running along the ground.

When we arrived at the port, the cranes were unloading a barge full of corn. The big grain buckets would open, then drop down, down, on their swaying steel cables. Then, clomp, they would shut on a couple of tons of corn. Then up, up, and the crane would swing around, until the bucket was just over one of the big trucks waiting patiently in line. Then the bucket would open and, fwoooosh, out would pour the corn.

We could see all this very clearly, because the port area was pretty open. Actually, it was completely open. We just drove in and parked the car. Some children were playing nearby, and the Danube rolled placidly along at the edge of the parking lot.

I put Alan on my shoulders, and we walked over to the base of one of the cranes. This would, of course, have been completely impossible in the US or Germany -- random strangers with two-year-olds are generally not allowed close to huge, heavy, dangerous machinery. But nobody at the port of Oltenita seemed particularly concerned.

The crane, enormous, swayed slightly back and forth with each swing of the bucket. It was mounted on rails, and the brakes weren't perfectly set -- it would roll an inch or two each way as the weight shifted. The electric motors were almost silent, but the cables and pulleys creaked and groaned. 15 or 20 meters above, we could see the little cabin where the operator was pulling on levers.

Alan was entranced. I mean, he literally went into a trance-like state. He just sat on my shoulders, mouth hanging open, watching the big cranes empty that barge. Squeak, clomp, up comes the bucket. Creeeak, around swings the crane. Fwoosh, schloompf, down the corn drops into the back of the truck... he just sat there, absolutely transfixed, for maybe twenty minutes.

It was a lasting impression, too. This morning, three days later, I said, "Alan, do you remember the cranes?" "Maiz!" he immediately replied -- that's "corn" in German. Or maybe in Romanian. I lose track.

Anyhow, the whole thing was pretty cool. Yeah, for me too. Come on, forty year old East German electric giant cranes. What's not to like?

Posted by douglas at May 4, 2004 09:10 PM