Measuring over 110 meters tall and weighing about 5,000 tonnes, this gigantic German mining machine is the largest land vehicle on Earth. In HBO’s science fiction series Westworld, an excavator such as this one rips a town up by its roots. It is actually open-pit mines where these diggers work. This digger, known as Bagger 288, is equipped with a revolving wheel of buckets that acts as a shovel, and it can continuously move 8.5 million cubic feet of soil every day. Lignite seam = Furthermore, this huge machine needs a workforce, right? Just a few individuals, in fact.
- The buckets transport excess dirt and rock or lignite to four conveyor belts, which transport the material at greater than 11 miles per hour. Each belt is 10.5 feet in width, giving a Smart car plenty of room to be transported by the belts.
- In total, 86,000 square feet of tread bears the 13,000-ton Bagger’s weight at a leisurely 0.4 miles per hour.
- Electricity for the excavator comes from 5,600 feet of wires (thick enough to accommodate a man’s arm) laid under the ground. It requires the same amount of energy as a city of 20,000 people at any given moment.
- Two 148-foot tall pylons and 7,218 feet of steel suspension cables are covered in 88,000 pounds of paint.
- Measuring 71 feet tall, the bucket-like wheel’s a seven-story building’s height. The bucket’s 18 tonnes (empty!) is capable of lifting 230 cubic feet of soil, which is enough to fill a cargo vehicle.
