r/cranes

Looking to get into cranes here soon under apprenticeship. No ties so willing to relocate to basically anywhere. Just curious of locals that need guys to start.

Thanks ahead of the time!

Why can't someone hop in a VRC (Vertical Reciprocating Conveyor) if it's strong enough to lift a couple of hundred kilos of steel?

It's not built or certified for that job. It's certified as a Conveyor, not an elevator, and those two things have completely different safety guidelines.

A passenger-rated lift needs features like redundant braking systems, so if one fails, there's a backup to catch you, not the floor. It needs door interlocks that physically prevent the lift from moving unless everything's sealed shut. Speed governors. Emergency rescue protocols if someone gets stuck between floors. Fall-arrest engineering is baked into the structure itself.

A VRC has none of that, because it was never designed to. It's built to move a pallet from floor one to floor two, safely and repeatedly, at a fraction of the cost, and it hits that bar without needing any of the passenger-safety engineering, because nobody's supposed to be standing on the platform when it moves.

That's actually where a lot of the cost gap comes from, too, if you think about it. All that extra engineering for human safety isn't optional once people are involved; it's mandatory, it's expensive, and it's inspected constantly. Skip the "people ride in it" requirement, and you skip that entire layer of design and compliance.

So it's not that a VRC couldn't physically hold a person's weight. It wasn't engineered, tested, or certified to protect one, and using it that way would be a safety violation, not a shortcut.

Just made some stupid money off a parlay that hit, and I’ve been wanting to get into cranes. Thinking about buying a pick and carry for my property and applying for jobs after a couple of weeks. Thoughts?

https://preview.redd.it/z6hi7tvxwxah1.png?width=965&format=png&auto=webp&s=442973a177503409f647e3c2b214472ba12047c2

Currently experiencing a heat dome for the rest of the week in the Midwest, I’m running a grove RT with no working AC and want to get people’s insight on how they keep it cold in the cab.

Maybe sticking a bag of ice down my pants or one of those neck fans. Not too sure lol

I’m 20 from Colorado and I want to get into the crane industry. Starting from scratch here, if you were in my shoes, what would you do to get your foot in the door? Looking at rigging, signal, and crane operator classes. I’m weighing both union and non-union routes, just trying to figure out the smartest path in. On the non-union side I’ve been looking at paying for my own NCCCO certs and crane school to get certified fast, then hiring on with a crane rental or rigging outfit to build seat time. Union (IUOE) vs non-union to start, which gave you a better foot in the door? And anything you wish you’d known starting out? Really appreciate any tips, thanks.

Current local union backup for a while so non union route tips would help ! And if school what schools would be recommended.