Last updated 05:33, Friday, 11 July 2008

To most of us Ursa Major (The Great Bear) conjures up the famous star constellation the Plough, which points to the Pole Star.

Crouching bear: Tullie House recently acquired a superb 1:15 scale model of the great bear crane – made by top model-makers Basset-Lowke. It is on view in the museum’s reception area

This name was rather poetically chosen for the largest ever mobile railway recovery crane made by the Carlisle firm Cowans Sheldon.

The name may have something to do with the sheer size and power of this monster, but perhaps also because it was made for a mining firm in the ‘frozen north’ (Canada in this instance).

Tullie House has recently acquired a superb 1:15 scale model of this crane – made by top model-makers Basset-Lowke. This is on view in the museum’s reception area.

Cowans had used the model to promote their special ‘baby’ and seek orders around the world.

The crane itself was made in 1960 and supplied, together with a smaller version, Ursa Minor. One of its special tasks was to lift vast Canadian Pacific locomotives and iron-ore wagons that had become de-railed on the frozen tracks of the treacherous Fermont-Port Cartier railroad in Quebec.

In their heyday Cowans were proudly ‘Crane-makers to the World’ and their railway and dockside cranes were made for many countries, especially those in the former British Empire.

They also made the Victorian roof of Carlisle Market Hall.

Sadly the firm closed in 1987 when its then owners Clark Chapman moved to Gateshead.