A track crane travels on its own crawler undercarriage rather than on tires, which is why it works on ground a wheeled crane cannot reach and why it never drives itself to your site. Small telescopic crawlers of 8 to 15 tons are hired by the day; the big lattice machines are hired by the month and assembled where they stand.
Three machines answer to the name
A telescopic crawler is a compact machine with a hydraulic boom that walks onto soft ground and lifts. A lattice boom crawler is the tall one on a tower job, erected on site. A tracked carrier with a knuckle boom is a third thing again. They are hired on entirely different terms, so name the class you mean at enquiry.
Assembly is billed, and it is not quick
A lattice machine arrives in pieces: car body, tracks, counterweights, boom sections. An erection crew and an assist crane put it together over a day or more and take it apart at the end, and both are charged. That is why crawlers are quoted monthly, and why a two week job on one is usually poor value.
Duty cycle work still belongs to a crawler
Clamshell digging, dragline work, driving sheet piles and hanging a vibratory hammer are cyclical loads a wheeled crane is not rated for. Where the job is repetitive lifting rather than a few set lifts, a crawler is often the only machine a yard will supply for it, whatever the reach chart says.
What the yard needs before it can quote
The heaviest load, the radius it sits at, the height it goes to, the ground it stands on, the width of the access and how long the machine is needed. Without those six the answer is a rate card rather than a price, and a crane quoted on reach alone is the usual reason a lift gets postponed.
Questions people ask about track crane
Can a track crane drive on the road?
No. Steel tracks destroy pavement and the machine is far too slow and too wide, so it moves by trailer between sites. Budget for the transport in both directions and for the space to unload, since that cost is often larger than a week of hire.
Why hire tracks instead of a wheeled crane?
Ground pressure and mobility. Tracks spread the load over a much larger footprint, which is what lets a crane work on fill, mud or a prepared pad rather than on hardstanding, and many crawlers can travel with a load suspended where a mobile crane cannot.
What ground preparation does one need?
A level, compacted working area sized for the machine, and usually mats or timbers under the tracks. On anything other than firm natural ground the bearing pressure should be checked against what the ground will take before the machine is booked.
Is an operator included?
Almost always, and often a second person for rigging. Crawler hires are quoted as an operated service rather than a bare machine, and the lift plan, the rigging gear and the supervision are agreed as part of the same conversation.