A rail-mounted slewing crane is a crane that is rotatably mounted on a rail vehicle. These are mainly used to recover derailed railway vehicles or for construction work. The first cranes were manually operated winches built on flat cars. From 1860 there were steam-powered cranes and from 1930 diesel power was used. The diesel-hydraulic drive became established from 1960 onwards.

Our crane was first put into service in 1956 with the number 6962 Reg and was then given the number 30 80 974 0 115-9 Gl Regensburg. It is a pure track-laying crane with a lifting capacity of 15 tonnes. It is capable of laying track yokes up to 9 m long. A track yoke is the name for a pre-assembled unit of two rail tracks and their sleepers.