This is a giant machine located in western Germany, known as the Bagger 293. This machine is as tall as the Big Ben clock tower in London.
Before the Bagger 293 was created in 1995, it had famous “siblings” such as the Bagger 281 (1958), Bagger 287 (1976), Bagger 288 (1978), and Bagger 291 (1993)…
The Bagger 293 can devour hundreds of thousands of tons of earth every day. This is a real machine, not a figment of imagination or science fiction.
Bagger 293 is currently the largest machine on the planet. (Photo: Pinterest)
According to Steve Remilli, project manager at the McMaster Manufacturing Research Institute, the Bagger 293 is one of the largest land vehicles in the world. Imagine similar machines looking like small cities attached to circular saws; the Bagger 293 is the largest city among them.
Thus, Bagger 293 is recorded in the Guinness World Records as the largest land vehicle on Earth.
The Bagger 293 was produced by the German company Takraft, measuring about 225 meters long and weighing over 14,000 tons. Despite its massive size and weight, this machine leaves a footprint no deeper than a human’s. These excavators are “masters” of a skill known as lignite mining. This is what sets them apart from any other machine.
Dr. Thomas Adams from the Chemical Engineering Department at McMaster University commented: “Bagger 293 is a monster. This machine can move over 200,000 tons of earth in a day, equivalent to 2,500 kg of material every second. The scale of this is truly astonishing. To put it simply, this super excavator can dig a hole the length of a football field in just one day.”
Weighing over 14,000 tons, the Bagger 293 can move smoothly on the ground. (Photo: mechanicaleducation)
Weighing 14,200 tons, transporting the Bagger 293 is clearly not easy and extremely costly. It took more than three weeks for this excavator to complete a 128 km journey from the manufacturing plant to the nearby Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine, moving at a speed of just about 0.6 km/h. To date, the longest distance the Bagger 293 has traveled was recorded in 2001, approximately 22 km from the Hambach mine to the Garzweiler mine.
In fact, according to experts, the Bagger 293 is considered a key factor in maintaining the operation of coal plants. Without such machines, countries could be plunged into darkness.
To operate the Bagger 293, a team of five is required. Notably, to function effectively, this giant machine needs an external power supply of 16.56 megawatts.
The Bagger 293 has a bucket wheel with a diameter of over 21.3 m, consisting of 18 buckets, each holding more than 15 m³ of material.
Experts state that to own a Bagger 293, the buyer must spend at least 100 million USD. The reason for this high price is that it took five years to design, produce, and then another five years to assemble before this machine was completed.
With its superlative power characteristics, the Bagger 293 is a crucial link for countries mining lignite, a resource often buried under tons of materials such as mud and rock. Lignite currently provides about one-third of the electricity for Germany, more than half of which relies on burning lignite. Germany is the largest producer of lignite in the world.
In reality, there is no vehicle capable of transporting the Bagger 293, so the only way is to transport it in parts to a spacious area for reassembly.
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What is lignite? Lignite, also known as brown coal, is a type of coal used in many power plants and is often buried under tons of materials like mud and rock. This is why we need extremely large and powerful machines like the Bagger 293 to remove those materials and mine lignite. Lignite is typically mined in Bulgaria, Greece, Germany, Serbia, Russia, the USA, and it is mainly used for power generation. |
