PIT-MINING JUGGERNAUT
The Bagger 293 excavator is the world’s largest land vehicle
Its incredible size and jagged-edged wheel makes the Bagger 293 look like something looming on the horizon of a post-apocalyptic nightmare. But what looks like an intimidating circular saw is actually composed of giant buckets designed to scoop earth as the wheel revolves and digs.
Baggers are a series of bucket-wheel excavators that operate in large, open mining pits. They are able to move thousands of tons of material every day, and when used with other machinery, such as conveyor belts and crushing systems, they act as some of the most efficient earth-moving machines in operation in the world today.
The Bagger 293 is the biggest of these monster machines. Based in Germany, it holds the record for the largest and heaviest land vehicle in the world. It weighs as much as 2,000 adult elephants and is as tall as a 30-storey building. Astonishingly, it can dig a hole the length and width of a football field to a depth of over 25 metres in just one day. The highly efficient machine alone extracts enough coal to power the homes of several million people.
They’re mostly commonly used in brown coal (a softer type of coal made of naturally compressed peat) mining as an alternative to blasting. Instead, they scrape away at the soft rock to expose the harder rock that lies beneath before getting to work on extracting the coal. When they’re in action the result is literally earth-shaking.
“The highly efficient machine alone extracts enough coal to power the homes of several million people”