Marenbroek workshop collection
✨From tkwa.me
The Marenbroek workshop collection is a group of apparatus, drawings and trial records retained by the Marenbroek Zoological Station in the Netherlands. It includes the original stationary Giraffecycle rig, built in 1961, and two of the six rolling machines completed between 1963 and 1969.
The stationary rig held a giraffe in supporting slings while four sliding hoof platforms drove against a friction brake. It was used to develop the stepping and loading routines before the apparatus acquired wheels. The surviving vehicles record later changes to the chassis, hoof drive, chin control and brakes. Fitting cards and trial sheets document how staff adjusted the machines for individual animals and measured their performance.
The collection also holds route surveys and drawings for Marta van Dalen's proposed East African Giraffecycle freight service. Its staffed loading yards, repair workshops and training grounds were to carry freight between villages and markets; receipts would subsidise wild-giraffe self-service stations, where equipment would teach free-ranging animals the controls and fit their supports. The scheme remained unbuilt. Separate plans for the Tandem Giraffecycle put two giraffes on independent drives with a brake for either animal. Tandem development ended at a full-size stationary mock-up. The station's 1994 catalogue reconstructed the sequence of workshop modifications from the drawings and trial sheets. A displayed spare chin control was fitted with a hand lever for hygiene; its label continued to describe the vehicle's operation without the use of hands. The station retained the collection when it ceased keeping animals in 1998.
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