The rail is the runway, so it goes in first and it sets the quality of everything after it. Eight on-site stages, anchor loads from 0.125 to 2 tons, rail alignment values, mast and boom settings, 2026 cost ranges, and the load test figures you have to hit before production starts.
A traveling jib crane installs in 3 to 8 working days on a floor rail, and 6 to 12 days on a ceiling track. The crane is the easy part. On this machine the rail is the runway, and everything the crane does for the next fifteen years depends on how straight, how level and how well anchored that rail is. Hold rail straightness inside 10 mm over the full run, keep the longitudinal slope at or under 1 mm per metre, and budget USD 1,500 to 5,000 for installation labour plus USD 500 to 2,000 for commissioning and load testing.
This guide walks through the eight on-site stages, the load a 0.125 to 2 ton traveling jib actually puts into the floor or the roof steel, the rail alignment values your installer has to hold, what usually goes wrong with the mast, boom and rotation, 2026 cost ranges, and the load test figures that have to be hit before anyone signs the handover sheet. It is written for plant engineers, maintenance managers and workshop owners who hold the installation contract and will be the one calling the installer back if it is wrong.
People order a traveling jib because a fixed jib does not reach far enough. The whole unit rides along a rail, so one crane serves several workstations instead of one. That flexibility is bought with an extra installation stage that no fixed jib has: the rail itself.
So the sequence is different from a pillar jib. You put the rail in first, then the traveling carriage, then the mast and boom, then the electrics, then you align and test. If the rail is off, nothing downstream can be fixed by adjusting the crane.
| Stage | Typical duration | Usually done by |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Site survey, floor or steel check, travel path clearance sweep | 0.5-1 day | Owner plus crane engineer |
| 2. Design approval, anchor and foundation plan | 3-10 days (office) | Crane supplier engineering |
| 3. Floor pad, plinth or ceiling steel prepared; anchor positions set out | 1-3 days | Civil or steel contractor |
| 4. Rail delivered, laid, shimmed, aligned, anchored and grouted; end stops fitted | 1-3 days | Installation crew |
| 5. Traveling carriage landed on the rail, wheels and travel drive aligned | 0.5-1 day | Installation crew |
| 6. Mast and boom assembled, rotation bearing and stops fitted, plumb checked | 1-2 days | Installation crew |
| 7. Hoist, festoon or cable chain, power feed, controls | 1-2 days | Crew plus electrician |
| 8. Alignment re-check, load test, commissioning and handover | 1-2 days | Commissioning engineer, third party if required |
Two of those stages, number 2 and number 3, sit outside the crane supplier's scope on most projects. Stage 2 is office work and costs you no site time. Stage 3 is the one that eats the calendar, because floor pads and roof steel are other trades with other queues.
Also worth saying plainly: a supplier quoting "installation and commissioning" is not always quoting all eight stages. Ask which line items are in and which are excluded, in writing, before you compare two prices.
The variable is not tonnage. It is whether you are going into a floor rail or a ceiling track, and whether the surface that rail sits on already exists. A flat, sound concrete slab with no services in the way makes for a very short job. A slab that needs a plinth poured, or a roof that needs steel added for a track, doubles or triples it.
| Capacity | Typical rail run | Floor-rail install, site days | Ceiling-track install, site days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.125-0.25 t | 6-8 m | 3-4 | 4-6 |
| 0.5-1 t | 8-12 m | 4-6 | 6-9 |
| 1-2 t | 12-15 m | 5-8 | 8-12 |
The ceiling track takes longer for one reason. Every support point has to be checked against real structure, and on a retrofit that almost always means adding steel. The floor rail only needs a slab that can carry the anchors, which is a much smaller conversation.
Total project time from order to handover runs 5 to 10 weeks on a standard unit. Design approval, fabrication, shop assembly and pre-delivery inspection come before the truck arrives, and the site work is the short end of it. Plan your shutdown around week eight, not week two.
This is the stage where money is saved or lost. A traveling jib pushes its entire weight, crane plus load, into the rail, and the rail pushes it into whatever it is fixed to. The deciding number is not the crane's rated capacity. It is the load at the anchors.
The spread is wider than most buyers expect, because the carriage adds its own weight on top of the crane, and the dynamic factor adds roughly another third for travel and braking.
| Rated capacity | Approx. crane and carriage weight | Max load per carriage wheel | Design load per anchor group |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25 t | ~480 kg | ~0.5 t | ~0.6 t |
| 0.5 t | ~720 kg | ~0.8 t | ~0.9 t |
| 1 t | ~1,150 kg | ~1.4 t | ~1.5 t |
| 2 t | ~1,900 kg | ~2.5 t | ~2.6 t |
The table assumes a two-wheel carriage, a 1.3 dynamic factor and anchors at roughly 1 m centres. Your real numbers depend on the carriage wheelbase and the anchor spacing. Ask for the wheel load drawing rather than using these figures to size anything. What they are good for is a sanity check: if your slab was poured for light forklift traffic and nobody has looked at it since, a 2 ton unit is a conversation, not an installation.
For a floor rail, the survey has to answer four things. Can the slab take the anchors without cracking, is there a minimum of 200 mm of sound concrete under each anchor, is the slab flat enough to shim from, and is the travel path clear of drainage channels, expansion joints and buried services. Drilling into a post-tensioned slab or over a duct is the kind of mistake that does not show up until the anchor is in.
Foundation requirements in the installation manuals for this class of machine are consistent, and worth knowing before you argue with a contractor. Minimum concrete strength around 20 MPa, which is the old 3,000 psi figure. Anchor bolts of at least M20, or 3/4 inch. Full contact between the base plate and the foundation, achieved with shims plus grout, not with shims alone. And no grouting until the boom is on and the mast has been re-checked for plumb, because grout locks in whatever angle the mast had at the time.
For a ceiling track it is the same logic pointed upward. The track hangs from hangers, and every hanger point has to be checked against the actual beam it clamps to, including the local condition of the flange where the clamp sits. Move the services before the track goes up. Cable trays, sprinkler mains and compressed air lines in that zone cost a few hundred dollars to relocate in advance and a shutdown plus a second trade to relocate afterwards.
Set the rail out from the crane's travel line, not from the building's column line. Workshops are rarely square, and a rail pulled off a column grid will fight the carriage for the life of the machine. Mark it on the floor, check clearance at both ends and the middle, then drill.
A traveling jib rotates as well as travels. That means the boom sweeps a cylinder along the whole run, so clearing a column at one position proves nothing. Walk the full travel length with the actual machine envelope drawing in hand, and check the highest and lowest positions of the hoist hook too.
Then hold the alignment. The traveling jib's rail is a crane runway in miniature, and the reference is the same: ISO 12488-1:2012, which is identical to GB/T 10183.1-2018.
| Check | Grade 2 (standard cranes) | Grade 1 (high speed or precision) |
|---|---|---|
| Rail straightness, horizontal plane, full travel run | ±10 mm | ±5 mm |
| Longitudinal slope of the running surface | 1 mm per 1 m | 0.5 mm per 1 m |
| Rail joint, step at the running surface | 1 mm or less | 0.5 mm or less |
| Rail joint, sideways offset | 1 mm or less | 0.5 mm or less |
| Gauge between twin rails, where the carriage runs on two | ±3 mm | ±2 mm |
| Rail level across the section, twin-rail systems | 1 mm or less | 0.5 mm or less |
The slope figure is the one that gets ignored, and it is the one that hurts. A floor rail laid on a slab that falls 20 mm over 10 m for drainage looks fine to the eye. It is twice the allowance. The carriage then runs downhill under power and back uphill on the motor, the travel brake works harder in one direction than the other, and the wheels wear into a taper within a couple of years.
Joint alignment matters just as much on a rail as on a runway, and for the same reason: the top surface is the running surface. Align the top and the sides, or the wheels bump on every crossing. ASME B30.11 has the same requirement for track splices, 11-1.3.1(c): splices must ensure proper alignment of the flange surface and sides. Grout or shim each joint, do not rely on the anchors to pull it down.
Anchoring method depends on the floor. Cast-in anchors set during a new pour are the best option and cost nothing extra if you plan the rail at pour time. Chemical anchors are the standard retrofit choice and are fine when the hole is drilled clean, the dust is blown out and the curing time is respected. Mechanical expansion anchors are quick and the most often installed badly, usually by over-torquing them, which cracks the concrete cone the anchor depends on. Whichever you use, torque them to the manufacturer's figure with a torque wrench and record the values.
Two practical details on floor rails. Run the rail to the full length you need on day one, because extending it later means re-aligning what is already there. And protect it from traffic. A floor-rail traveling jib that gets clipped by a forklift is the single most common cause of premature failure we see on this machine type. A low kerb on both sides, or recessing the rail into a shallow channel, costs a fraction of a replacement rail and a re-alignment.
Where a ceiling track is used instead, add one check the floor version does not need: the track is a beam carrying a moving point load, so it has its own deflection limit and its own hanger spacing. Track, hangers and bracing all have to be looked at together, and this is the classic scope gap on retrofit jobs. Ceiling-track traveling jib cranes free up the floor completely, which is why assembly shops and laboratories keep choosing them despite the extra steelwork.
Once the rail is true, the crane itself is a fairly forgiving assembly. Most of the trouble comes from three items: mast plumb, boom level and rotation stops.
A mast that is out of plumb will not show up as a wobble. It shows up as a trolley that drifts toward one end of the boom when the load comes off, and as a hook that will not stay where the operator puts it. Plumb the mast on two adjacent faces, not one, and re-check after the boom goes on. The manuals for this class of crane make the same point about foundation levelness: a small deviation at the base is multiplied by mast height, and the taller the mast, the worse it gets.
Boom level is the second. A boom set dead level will droop slightly at the tip once it has its own weight and the hoist on it. That is normal and it is why the tip is usually set a little high during installation to compensate. A rule of thumb used in jib crane installation manuals is that tip deflection works out at roughly boom length divided by 150, so a 6 m boom drops about 40 mm under its own weight at the tip. Set it high by that amount and it will sit level in service.
Rotation stops are the third, and they are the item most often left off a traveling jib that rotates 270 to 360 degrees. Standard units rotate either 270 degrees or a full 360. Whichever you have, the end stops have to be fitted and positioned so the boom cannot be driven into a column, a wall or the operator's own access route. On a 360 degree unit, check the rotary collector or slip ring at the same time, because the power and control feed has to pass through the rotation axis without straining at full rotation.
| Item | What to set | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Mast plumb | Level on two adjacent faces, re-checked after boom fitting | Stops trolley drift and hook creep |
| Boom level | Tip set high to compensate loaded deflection | Keeps the load from running away from the mast |
| Rotation stops | Set for the machine's rotation angle, clear of obstructions | Prevents impact damage and operator injury |
| Rotary collector | Fitted and dress-tested through the full rotation | Required on 360 degree units for power and control |
| Cable chain or festoon | Routed to suit both travel and rotation | Most cable failures come from wrong routing, not age |
| Trolley end stops | Set at both ends of the boom, not just the far end | Keeps the trolley and hook on the boom |
Travel speed on these units is normally 10 to 20 m/min, which sounds slow until a 2 ton carriage gets moving and hits an end stop. The rule that applies is the same one used on overhead runways: end stops and buffers are sized for impact at 50 percent of rated travel speed with the rated load on the hook. Fit them at both ends of every rail run and at every open track end, and bolt them rather than welding them if the rail is galvanised.
Split the budget in two. There is the crane, which is quoted as a package, and there is everything that gets it working, which is quoted by different trades and is where projects overrun.
| Item | 2026 range (USD) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Travel rail and fixing hardware | 800-3,000 | Driven by run length and rail section |
| Mounting brackets and anchor plates | 400-1,500 | Higher for ceiling track hanger sets |
| Installation labour and assembly | 1,500-5,000 | Crew of two to three, three to eight days |
| Electrical work and power feed | 500-2,000 | Supply point, isolator, festoon or cable chain |
| Commissioning and load test | 500-2,000 | Includes test weights and written report |
| Motorised travel drive | 1,200-3,500 | Optional; manual push travel is standard on small units |
| Wireless remote control | 800-2,500 | Pendant control is included as standard |
| Floor pad, plinth or roof steel | 500-4,000 | Civil or steel contractor; almost always excluded |
Roll that up and the installed system looks like this. These figures are for a floor-rail unit on a standard run, with the crane equipment priced FOB.
| Configuration | Crane equipment (USD) | Complete installed system (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 0.125-0.5 t on a 6-8 m rail | 2,800-5,000 | 5,500-9,000 |
| 0.5-1 t on an 8-12 m rail | 4,500-8,000 | 8,500-13,500 |
| 1-2 t on a 12-15 m rail | 8,000-14,000 | 13,000-18,500 |
Installation and commissioning land at 25 to 45 percent on top of the bare crane price for a floor-rail unit. That uplift is narrower than a suspension crane, which runs 30 to 60 percent, because there is no hanger steel and no structural survey to pay for. It widens fast if you need a plinth poured or a roof reinforced.
If the number is uncomfortable, run the longer comparison. A 1 ton traveling jib on a 12 m rail often beats three separate fixed jibs on installed cost, and the traveling jib cost and TCO analysis breaks down the ten-year view including wheels, rail wear and travel drive maintenance.
Commissioning is where the machine stops being an assembly and starts being a lifting appliance. On a traveling jib the order matters. Re-measure the rail first, because nothing else can be trusted if the rail moved during installation. Then check mast plumb, boom level, rotation stops and all the anchor torques. Only after that does a test load go near the hook.
Then run the functions one at a time. Hoist up and down through the full height. Trolley along the full boom. Carriage along the full rail, in both directions. Rotation through its full angle. Limits and stops at every end. Then run travel and hoist together at slow speed and listen. A carriage that knocks once per rail joint is a joint alignment problem, and it is a ten minute fix now and a new wheelset later.
| Test | Test load | What it proves |
|---|---|---|
| Static, rated load | 100% of rated capacity | Hoist brake holds, mast and boom carry the load |
| Static, overload | 100% to 125% of rated capacity | Structural integrity; boom deflection measured at the tip |
| Dynamic | 110% of rated capacity | Hoist, trolley, rotation and travel all work under load |
| Rail end stop impact | Rated load at 50% of travel speed | Stops and anchors resist the impact and hold the rail |
| Rotation and limit checks | No load | Stops, limits and the rotary collector work through full travel |
The overload figure is normally 125 percent unless the manufacturer or a qualified person sets a different value. ASME B30.11 requires a written record of the test load and the operations carried out, and that applies to machines that have been reinstalled, altered, repaired or modified, not just new ones. If a traveling jib is moved to a new bay, it goes back through the same test in its new position, and that includes the rail.
One exemption is worth knowing because it saves arguments. Swapping a wire rope or a load chain does not, by itself, call for a full load test, provided the hoist is put through an operational check afterwards. Change a mast section, a rotation bearing or a rail anchor, and the test is back on.
Do not take a verbal "all good". The items below are the ones that cannot be re-checked cheaply later, and two of them, the anchor torques and the joint alignment, are buried under the rail the moment the job is finished.
| # | Item | Acceptance value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rail straightness measured and recorded over the full run | ±10 mm at Grade 2 |
| 2 | Rail level and slope recorded | 1 mm per 1 m maximum |
| 3 | Every rail joint aligned, top surface and sides | Step and offset within 1 mm |
| 4 | Anchor torques checked with a wrench and logged | To the manufacturer's figure, per anchor |
| 5 | Grout and shim contact under base plates | Full contact, no rocking under load |
| 6 | Mast plumb, checked on two faces after boom fitting | Within the manufacturer's tolerance |
| 7 | Boom level with tip pre-set for loaded deflection | Tip high by the calculated amount |
| 8 | Rotation stops set; both travel end stops and trolley stops fitted | Every open rail end, clear of obstructions |
| 9 | Electrical functions, both limits and overload limiter tested | Voltage, phase, earth, all controls and stops |
| 10 | Load test report, rated load marking, drawings and manuals handed over | Marking visible to the operator |
Ask for photographs of items 3, 4 and 5 as they were installed. Once the rail is down and grouted, those are the only evidence you will have in year three when someone asks why an anchor is loose.
Rail slope, by a wide margin. Floor slabs are laid to fall, and nobody thinks about it until the carriage is on. It is also the cheapest thing to check on day one and the most expensive thing to fix on day ten, because fixing it means lifting the rail and re-grouting everything under it.
Second is the anchor detail. Over-torqued expansion anchors, holes not cleaned, chemical anchors loaded before they have cured. The rail looks perfect and moves two millimetres the first time the carriage brakes hard. Nothing about it is visible from standing height.
Third is the clearance envelope. Someone checks the boom against the nearest column at one position and assumes the rest of the run is the same. Because a traveling jib rotates as it travels, the swept volume is a cylinder along the whole rail, and the obstruction is usually a pipe or a light fitting halfway down.
Fourth is the energy feed. Cable chains and festoons get routed for travel or for rotation, not for both, and the first thing to fail is the cable at the transition. Route it on the drawing, not on the day, and dress-test it through full travel and full rotation before the crane is handed over.
Fifth is traffic protection on floor rails, which we touched on earlier and is worth repeating because it is entirely preventable. A kerb costs less than a wheelset. If the crane shares a bay with forklifts, put the kerb in during installation.
If you want a second opinion before you commit, our engineers review workshop layouts and rail anchoring requirements, and we supply the wheel load drawings your structural or civil engineer needs before the order is placed. You can see the traveling jib crane range for capacities and rail options, compare the two mounting arrangements in the workshop layout guide, or go deeper on the standards and certification side.
Three to eight working days on site for a floor-rail unit, and six to twelve days for a ceiling track. Capacity matters less than the surface the rail sits on. If the slab or the roof steel is ready, a 1 ton unit on a 12 m rail typically goes up in five to eight days. If a pad has to be poured or steel added, add a week and a half, most of it waiting on another trade rather than on the crane crew.
Usually yes, if the slab is sound and thick enough. The figures to give your engineer are the anchor loads, which run from about 0.6 t for a 0.25 t unit to about 2.6 t per anchor group for a 2 ton unit. Installation manuals for this class of crane typically call for at least 20 MPa, or 3,000 psi, concrete and anchors of M20 or 3/4 inch minimum. Slabs poured for light forklift traffic are often adequate for 0.5 t and below. For 2 ton units, get a civil engineer to look, especially near slab edges, joints and post-tensioned tendons.
Rail straightness within 10 mm over the full travel run at Grade 2, longitudinal slope of 1 mm per metre or less, and joint step and side offset within 1 mm. Twin-rail carriages add a gauge tolerance of plus or minus 3 mm. The reference is ISO 12488-1:2012, identical to GB/T 10183.1-2018, and it is the same set of values the crane was designed and built against. Ask the installer to record the measurements rather than report them as satisfactory.
Installation labour and assembly runs USD 1,500 to 5,000, electrical work USD 500 to 2,000, and commissioning with load test USD 500 to 2,000. The rail itself is USD 800 to 3,000 and mounting brackets USD 400 to 1,500. Complete installed systems run USD 5,500 to 9,000 for a 0.125 to 0.5 ton unit on a 6 to 8 m rail, and USD 13,000 to 18,500 for a 1 to 2 ton unit on a 12 to 15 m rail. Floor pads or roof reinforcement are almost always excluded and add USD 500 to 4,000.
ASME B30.11 requires testing at rated load and above, typically 100 to 125 percent of rated capacity for the static test and 110 percent for the dynamic test, plus an end stop impact test at 50 percent of travel speed with the rated load. The written record of the test load and the operations performed is mandatory, and it covers reinstalled, altered, repaired and modified machines, not just new ones. Replacing a wire rope or load chain is exempt provided the hoist gets an operational check.
Floor rail, by a clear margin. It needs a sound slab and anchors, and it leaves the headroom untouched. A ceiling track requires every hanger point to be checked against real structure, and on retrofit work that usually means adding steel, which is a second trade and a longer lead time. The ceiling version wins on floor space, not on installation effort, and it is the better answer when the bay has to stay clear for vehicles or personnel.
Send us your workshop layout, floor details and lifting requirement. Our engineering team will confirm the capacity and boom that fits, the wheel loads and anchor loads your civil or structural engineer needs, the rail alignment tolerances your installer must hold, and a full installation and commissioning scope so nothing falls between contracts.
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