Süderau retires 220-tonne crane for a Tadano AC 5.250L-2

A like-for-like replacement, only longer

Süderau’s fleet is almost entirely Tadano, so the shortlist for replacing its existing 220-tonne crane was never going to be long. Fleet renewal is routine at the company rather than an occasional event, and on this occasion the management says the AC 5.250L-2 was the target from the outset. The machine was handed over at the Lauf factory by Thorsten Dietzel, Tadano’s regional sales manager for northern Germany.

Reach was the deciding argument. The five-axle crane carries a 79-metre main boom, and Süderau ordered it with a 12-metre jib extension plus a heavy-lift attachment to stretch that further when a lift has to clear an obstruction or work at height. The crane runs with 80 tonnes of counterweight and can call on an additional 30.4-tonne auxiliary counterweight.

Cameras for tight set-ups

The specification leans heavily on vision systems. Alongside a load monitoring camera on the main boom, Süderau took the Surround View package, which shows outrigger positions across all support bases together with the tail swing radius of the counterweight for the crane’s current position. That information is presented on a dedicated screen in the cab, which matters most when the operator is squeezing the machine into a confined standing area. In practice it removes a good deal of the guesswork from siting a five-axle crane in a yard that was never designed for one, and it does so before the outriggers go down rather than after.

Single engine, lower running cost

Süderau also makes an economic case for the crane. Its management points to the single-engine layout as the reason the AC 5.250L-2 is cheaper to buy and less demanding to maintain than comparable machines. In service, the crane’s EU Stage V Mercedes-Benz engine works with an eco mode and a start-stop function to hold fuel consumption down.

“We regularly modernize our fleet and were looking for a replacement for our existing 220-tonne Tadano crane. We had our eye on the AC 5.250L-2 from the start and ultimately chose it because of its many advantages.”

— Süderau management

The crane did not spend long in the yard. Shortly after handover it was loading and repositioning heavy-duty containers on a power plant site — an unglamorous first assignment, but a useful shakedown for a machine bought to work rather than to sit.