:-o  this has got to be about the biggest piece of machinery ever! from apod:

 

 

 

 

A Bucket-Wheel Excavator on Earth

Credit: ThyssenKrupp Technologies, SwapMeetDave

 

Explanation: Please wait while one of the largest mobile machines in the world crosses the road. The machine pictured above is a bucket-wheel excavator used in modern surface mining. Machines like this have given humanity the ability to mine minerals and change the face of planet Earth in new and dramatic ways. Some open pit mines, for example, are visible from orbit. The largest excavators are over 200 meters long and 100 meters high, now dwarfing the huge NASA Crawler that transports space shuttles to the launch pads. Bucket-wheel excavators can dig a hole the length of a football field to over 25 meters deep in a single day. They may take a while to cross a road, though, with a top speed under one kilometer per hour.

 

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061122.html

 

 

 

 

Huge machine! They probably have to lay timbers and several feet of dirt on the road to protect it, before crossing with one of these. I know they have to do that with the big draglines used in the open-pit mines.

 

Some pretty big bucket-wheel excavators have been around since the late 1800s, but I've never seen a picture of anything even close to this in size. I wonder how long it took to assemble it.

phhht... I have one of those

It would appear the plans for that thing were beamed to us by some sort of alien race.

 

Still not sure the photo's f'real though...

I saw a mini-documentary done on this machine.  I believe it was being moved from one mine site to another in either Belgium or Germany.  It is quite real and (obviously) very large.

 

Makes "Big Muskie", which used to strip coal in Southeast Ohio, look like a Tonka Toy.

I saw a mini-documentary done on this machine.  I believe it was being moved from one mine site to another in either Belgium or Germany.  It is quite real and (obviously) very large.

 

Makes "Big Muskie", which used to strip coal in Southeast Ohio, look like a Tonka Toy.

 

Thanks for mentioning "Big Muskie."  I was thinking of that also with this thread.

We should build a few more, set them loose in the middle east and program them to go after terrorists!

I saw a mini-documentary done on this machine.  I believe it was being moved from one mine site to another in either Belgium or Germany.  It is quite real and (obviously) very large.

 

Makes "Big Muskie", which used to strip coal in Southeast Ohio, look like a Tonka Toy.

 

I saw a documentary on this machine and they had to shut down that road for an entire day just to move. They covered the road with about 5 feet of dirt and wooden timbers to protect the pavement. It took them, if I remember correctly, about 3 or 4 days for them to move it from the one location to the other.

 

I would love to see that thing in person. Talk about overwhelming.

^and it looks like the road in the photo is covered with a few feet of dirt also

I wonder if they put any dirt down over the road to distribute the weight a little...

 

^^ & ^

 

One word: Hah

Found some pix of "Big Muskie".  Got to see it as pictured just before it was dismantled.  The only thing that was saved was the bucket, which was moved to a park near Byesville, OH I believe.

wow, the orig. pic reminds me of war of the worlds or something.  thats scary

Machines like this have given humanity the ability to mine minerals and change the face of planet Earth in new and dramatic ways.

 

Go humanity. We RULE!

That is one BIG bucket....but someone once said that its not the size of the boat, but rather the motion in the ocean :wink:

That is one BIG bucket....but someone once said that its not the size of the boat, but rather the motion in the ocean :wink:

 

Sure...but it takes a hell of a lot longer to get to England in a rowboat. :wink::wink:

Machines like this have given humanity the ability to mine minerals and change the face of planet Earth in new and dramatic ways.

 

Go humanity. We RULE!

 

Where was this?

The paragraph from Thyssen Krupp on mrnyc's original post (click on "ThyssenKrupp").