"The Largest Railroad Crane in the World"

I railfanned pretty much alone until I moved to upstate New York in 1980. There, I made the acquaintance of some hard core "train nuts" and my serious photographic efforts really started while hanging out with them. That summer six of us decided to load up into one guy's van, and do a road trip west to Chicago. It was my first experience with "organized" train chasing. We planned where, when, and how to get a sampling of rail activity we didn't see at home. We wrote to various railroad head offices asking for permission to enter the property for photographic purposes. We had generally positive responses, even getting guided tours of several of the major facilities in Chicago. Of course a couple of lines warned us that "if you set foot upon our property, you will be immediately arrested!" One such line was the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad. The DT&I hauled coal, iron, and steel for the auto industry in Detroit. They had a colorful paint scheme, and some unique locomotives that we wanted to see and photograph. We weren't about to pass them up.
So, on our way home we ended up just south of Detroit, at the main yard used by the DT&I. Taking the written warning to heart, we were very careful to setup our tripods on public right of way, absolutely off of railroad property. It wasn''t too long after we arrived that a railroad police car drove up across the tracks from us and parked. After a few minutes of observation, the officer got out of the the vehicle and came over to us. We were fully prepared to be harassed, and to point out that we were off railroad and on public property. As he closed in on us, the first words out of his mouth were, "you boys taking pictures?". Remember, the six of us were festooned with railroad hats, vests, t shirts, cameras, setup tripods, etc. Fortunately our "leader" opened his mouth before any of the rest of us provided a smart ass answer, and inquired "Is there a problem officer?" The officer's next words were "how would you like see the world's largest railroad crane?" "Climb in your vehicle and follow me!" We were dumbfounded as we followed his black and white into the inner reaches of this busy and officially off limits railyard. After a bit he stopped, got out, and pointed to this rig . "The biggest railroad crane in the world" he said rather proudly. "Take all the pictures you want, just don't climb on anything" were his parting words as he climbed into his cruiser and left us, surprised and happy.
Now, thirty years later, none of the pictures of the DT&I that I took are anything special. Just more locomotives and cars. Except for my photo of "the largest railroad crane in the world".