Earth Movers II

The Bagger 293 is a colossal bucket-wheel excavator meticulously engineered for large-scale lignite (brown coal) mining in Germany’s Hambach open-pit mine.

Constructed by TAKRAF in 1995 at a cost of about $100 million, it holds the Guinness World Record as the heaviest and largest land vehicle, towering at 96 m and stretching 225 m long, and weighing in at 14,200 tonnes.

It's powered by an external 16.56 MW electrical supply, runs on 12 synchronized crawler tracks, and features a gargantuan 21.6 m diameter bucket wheel with 18 buckets, each holding ~15 m³ of overburden.

The excavator can move up to 240,000 m³ of earth per day—equivalent to over 10,000 truckloads—all managed by a remarkably small crew of around five operators.

Its key role is rapid overburden removal to expose lignite seams, making it indispensable in efficient mass excavation operations.