World’s Biggest Machines 4

- May 17, 2011

Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60 – World’s Biggest Movable Machine
The name of that epic structure is Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60 in Lichterfeld. This technological steel giant is 502 metres long, 202 metres wide, 80 metres high and 11,000 ton heavy. It was build in East Germany in 1991 by VEB TAKRAF Lauchhammer (although the GDR was manufacturing slightly lesser types since 1958). After only 13 months of operation the F60 bridge was taken out of operation for energy-political reasons. The opencast mine Klettwitz-Nord where the conveyor bridge was operating is closed. The bridge is owned now by the community and presented as the “Lying Eiffel Tower.”

Krupp Digging Machine – World’s Largest Digging Machine

This is the largest digging machine (or trencher or rotating shovel) in the world. It was built by Krupp and is shown here crossing a road in Germany on the way to its destination, an open air coal mine. Although at the mine the treads are unnecessary, it was cheaper to make the machine self-propelled than to try and move it with conventional hauling equipment. The machineis 95 meters high and 215 meters long (almost 2.5 football fields in length). Weight is 45,500 tons (that’s equivalent to a bumper to bumper line of jeeps 80 miles long). It took 5 years to design and manufacture at a cost of $100 million.