Gadgetopia

That's for surface (coal) mining.

This is a strip mining machine. Continuously removes large amounts of material.

it seems to be a coaldigger-and-transporter-in-one used in various places here in germany for surface mining and I guess the picture shows germany, because of the autobahn ;-) search google-images for "tagebau" and you will find more pictures like the one above. http://images.google.de/images?hl=de&lr=&q=tagebau&btnG=Suche

The Discovery channel did a show a few years ago about that mining machine. Pretty amazing. If I remember correctly, they had to drive it from one mining site to another because it cost to much time and money to disassemble and re-assemble... Can you imagine waking up and seeing that driving through your neighborhood???

@josh: if you can see one of these machines in your neigborhood, you could be next ;-) ... they are moving whole villages (which existed for a couple of hundred years) to discover new mininggrounds while destroying whole regions.

Yup, looks like a strip mining machine to me. There are several of these bad boys wandering around the lignite fields of central Texas - one is just on the horizon of my parents farm.

I'd love to get a link to a manufacturer's Web site. Anyone?

Here is another post about the same thing with some additional links to more pictures: http://utterlyboring.com/archives/2004/09/10/amonsterkilling_machine.php

In addition, this looks to be a manufacturer site:http://www.nkmz.com/English/index.html (then look for bucket wheel excavator in the site map)

I had a fuzzy memory of the name on the big machine I saw. (You could see it for miles) I looked at the Lower Cololorado River Authority web site and discovered they stopped their strip mining 10 years ago. But it bugged me that the I could almost think of the name on that machine. A little Google and I found it.

http://www.man-takraf.de/leipfrme.htm

I found a machine like the one in your photo under "Bucket Wheel Excavators"

This particular bcket wheel excavator was made in germany by KRUPP foedertechnik, weights 13,500 tons heights more than 100 meters, with a length of about 200 meters, and move on crawlers. Productivity is more than 240,000 m3 of material... It took 5 years to assembly.

See more on it there http://www.krupp-foerdertechnik.com/F/mining/subs/GiantBWEB.htm

[quote]it seems to be a coaldigger-and-transporter-in-one used in various places here in germany for surface mining and I guess the picture shows germany, because of the autobahn [/quote]

Where is the Autobahn??

[quote]it seems to be a coaldigger-and-transporter-in-one used in various places here in germany for surface mining and I guess the picture shows germany, because of the autobahn[/quote]

@ Nils K. Windisch Where is the Autobahn?? I see only regular street.

i think it is a Dredge used to dig canals and transport/ pile material

Krupp. Strip mining machine. Yup. Krupp. definately Krupp.

Anyway, I mean, how would I know, except that someone forwarded a message to me that has a powerpoint showing this thing with a complete BULLDOZER stuck in it's wheel, near the top. They apparently forgot to clear the zone the day prior to starting it up and scooped up some kit along the way. Other photos show the dozer after it was apparently dumped out onto the ground.

can you post the powerpoint slides of this?

I've been looking for that very powerpoint presentation. Would you be willing to email it to me?

Found it!!

Where's my dozer?

I am a Civil Engineer from the US currently in Frankfurt, Germany at my uncle's house with family. I need to know where this machine is so I can go see it! Please post.

it is a KRUPP it weighs 47,500 tons it travels at a speed of 560 metres per hour it is 711 metres long i have some photos of it accidentally scooping up a 100 ton dozer