Crane

An antique 50-ton motor crane that had been offered free to a good home has found one. The crane, complete with a giant bucket and a 100-foot boom, will go to SMS Railroad Services, a short-haul freight company in Bridgeport, Gloucester County. There it will be put back into service rebuilding Baldwin locomotives, SMS' president, Jeffrey L. Sutch, said. The last Baldwin locomotive was built in Philadelphia in 1954. The crane, which was gathering dust in an industrial shed on Delaware Avenue in Philadelphia, is owned by the Samuel Tabas Family Foundation of Haverford.

When Lee Pisauro wants to make a big impression with the summer campers, he doesn't mess around. He pulls out the heavy artillery with the front-end loader and crane simulator. "It's like playing with huge Tonka toys. Who wouldn't want to do that?" he asked. "The kids really seem to love that part of the program. " Twenty-six local children, ages 8 to 12, got that unusual chance during a two-week summer camp aimed at learning about career opportunities in construction.

Wanted: Home for retired 50-ton truck crane complete with bucket and 100-foot boom. Believed to be in working order. New owner must be handy with dust rag. Thirty years after it last lifted a steel girder, this unusual "big toy" is being offered free, compliments of the Samuel Tabas Family Foundation of Haverford. The deal includes new spare parts. Moving costs are negotiable. There's one proviso: It must not be scrapped, says Lee Tabas, 56, a trustee of the family foundation; he'd like it placed with a museum or trade group that can preserve and display it. "The crane has sentimental value to us," Tabas said.

Elizabeth Shaffer can, indeed, rest in peace, as inscribed on her tombstone at Montgomery Cemetery. Today, a preservation expert and crane operator will right her headstone, toppled onto the grass by vandals, and gently nudge it back into place. "What better day to do that than Memorial Day?" said T. Scott Kreilick, whose company, Kreilick Conservation, preserves outdoor monuments of stone and metal. Kreilick, 46, of Oreland, and Sal Rispo, 41, crane operator for the George Young Co. in Philadelphia, will restore dignity to the grave site of Shaffer, who died in 1879.

Fallen power lines shut down the Pennsylvania Turnpike for six hours yesterday between the Norristown and Valley Forge interchanges, creating havoc for tens of thousands of rush-hour motorists. A crane working on the widening of the turnpike damaged a utility pole, sending wires down across traffic lanes at 7 a.m., turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo said. Peco Energy Co. crews quickly turned off power to the pole, which also carries an AT&T fiber-optic cable. The road reopened at 1:09 p.m. after crews erected a temporary utility pole.

Authorities yesterday identified a third man who was part of a crew that was electrocuted after a crane struck an overhead power line in Telford. Danial G. Evans, 29, of Philadelphia, was killed in the accident Thursday morning at a cement plant owned by JDM Materials Co., according to the Bucks County Coroner's Office. Robert Forepaugh, 68, of Bensalem, had been backing up the crane when its boom struck a 7,200-volt power line. Evans and a coworker, George Frederick, 41, also of Philadelphia, scrambled to aid the crane operator, who had been thrown from the cab and was lying on the ground.

Robert Forepaugh, 68, of Bensalem, knew the dangers of heavy equipment. He had run his demolition company since he was 15. But at 9:17 yesterday morning, as Forepaugh maneuvered a crane at a concrete plant in Telford near the border between Montgomery and Bucks Counties, something went horribly wrong. As Forepaugh was backing up, the crane boom hit an overhead 7,200-volt power line, sending electricity through the machine. Forepaugh was jolted out of his seat and thrown to the ground.

L. Stanley Crane, 87, the chief executive credited with Conrail's remarkable rise from the ashes of the moribund Penn Central Railroad, died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia at Hospice of Palm Beach County in Boynton Beach, Fla. Mr. Crane came to Philadelphia in 1981 as the boss of Conrail, after retiring as chairman and chief executive of the profitable Southern Railway. He had 40 years' experience in the industry, enormous energy, and a quick grasp of complex subjects.

Your neck would ache just watching him. There he was, his head crooked, high on a 14-foot ladder with paintbrush in hand, weaving earth-toned swirls with sprigs and vines on a cathedral ceiling two stories up. Even Michelangelo used scaffolding and created ceiling art while prone. But Mark Welsh said his recent job of painting a mandala, or a geometric ring, around a stunning gold chandelier in the foyer of a Voorhees home seemed too small to warrant all that construction.

Ben Crane stood on the 18th tee with a two-shot lead, his first PGA Tour victory within reach. He planned to play conservatively, but a 357-yard drive changed that strategy. Crane made an eagle on the last hole yesterday and beat Bob Tway by four shots at the BellSouth Classic in Duluth, Ga., for his first victory in his 40th Tour event. "I am so thankful, I played great. I'm a little numb still," said Crane, the first first-time winner on the PGA Tour this year. Crane's eagle at the 18th punctuated a 29 on the back nine, and his 63 tied the course record.