The largest bucket wheel excavator in the world (probably)
Built by Krupp, seen here crossing a federal highway in Germany en route to its destination (an open-pit coal mine) it is cheaper to move the thing like this, than to construct or re-assemble on-site.
Stands over 95 metres tall, Is over 215 metres long (2.5 football fields) Weighs over 45,500 tons (yes that’s 45 thousand tons!), Cost $100 million USD, took 5 years to design & manufacture and 5 years to assemble
Only Requires 5 people to operate. The Bucket Wheel is over 70 feet in diameter with 20 buckets each of which can hold over 15 cubic metres of material. A 6-foot man can stand up inside one of the buckets.
It moves on 12 crawlers (each is 3.6 metres wide, 2.4 metres high and 14 metres long) 8 in front and 4 in back. Has a maximum Travel speed of 10m/min. It can remove over 76,455 cubic metres of overburden each day.
