The Largest Bucket Wheel Excavator in the world.....

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 meters tall

Is over 215 meters 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 meters of material. A 6-foot man can stand up inside one of the buckets.

It moves on 12 crawlers (each is 3.6 meters wide, 2.4 meters high and 14 meters long) - 8 in front and 4 in back

Has a maximum speed of 10m/min

It can remove over 76,455 cubic metres of overburden each day

don't see the picture below? click here for help