In this modern era of advanced technology and the ever present health and safety regulations to adhere to, we can scarcely realise the trials and tribulations our forefathers had to bear in their efforts to develop machinery that would enable them to extract granite from the earth.

John Fyfe was ever to the fore in the quest to develop new methods and machines to achieve that end.  One of the first innovations was the steam derrick crane which was developed with the help of Andrew Barclay from Kilmarnock.  It bore little if any resemblance to what we envisage a crane to be today.  The following is a description of one of these early cranes by one John Ritchie who was for some time manager at Tom's Forest quarry.

"I think about this time 1865-66 steam began to be introduced, Mr Fyfe as usual, always in the van of progress, being the first to erect a steam crane.  I think his first one came from Kilmarnock and some time after this Sclattie got one.  I understand this came from Mr Fyfe, he having replaced it by a more improved one.  A description of this crane is worth comparing with some of our improved modern ones.  In the first place, the Boiler and Engine Shed was at some distance from the crane.  ‘Engine Sandy’ was an oracle in the eyes of us youngsters.  Then there was a steam winch worked by another man.  The jib and burden chains came off the barrels of this winch and ran along a platform to the bottom of the crane.  Another man stood on this platform armed with a hook and as the chain came off the barrel, his duty was to pull it along until the crane could take it up through a casting in the bottom of the mast, and, as there was no slewing gear, another man was required with a guy rope to pull round the stone to the cutting bank.  This meant four men to work the crane and any heavy stone took from six to eight men to pull it to its destination.  I might also mention that the crane had handles and when a stone of any consequence had to be handled, steam was shut off and men put on to the handles.  Steam was pretty low about that time - no wonder Kipling speaks of the time they used to mend a broken pipe wi’ tow."

The steam derrick was not the be all and end all in the quarrying industry. Initially, when the quarry started being deepened, rather than worked in on the horizontal, the stone was taken to the surface by horses winding up a road round the side of the quarry.  This problem was alleviated by the construction of the aerial ropeway crane, which was popularly known as the Blondin. called after the Frenchman who was at that time wowing the world with his feats on the high wire.

Initially the device consisted of a wire rope which passed over the top of a wooden derrick  and was fixed on the opposite wall of the quarry. On this rope was a carrier which ran down by gravity and could be pulled back up by means of a rope wound round a steam winch.  From the carrier a rope could be lowered to the floor of the quarry and thus stone could be lifted from the foot of the quarry and placed on the bank at the side of the quarry.