📍Designed by the German business Krupp for the mining and energy company Rheinbraun, Bagger 288 is a mobile strip mining machine or bucket-wheel excavator.
📍At 13,500 tonnes, Bagger 288 surpassed Big Muskie as the world’s largest land vehicle upon completion of its construction in 1978. The entire project costed $100 million and took five years to develop, manufacture, and construct. It was itself replaced in 1995 by the slightly more powerful Bagger 293 (14,200 tonnes). Since bucket-wheel excavators require an external power source to operate, NASA’s Crawler-Transporter is still the world’s largest self-propelled land vehicle, while the Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60s are the largest land vehicle of any kind in terms of physical dimensions.
📍100% Germany is gradually closing its many lignite mines, which yield the least productive kind of coal. Perhaps a lesson in moving on might be learnt from the ghost towns hidden in the shadows of the mines.
📍Germany is the world’s largest producer of lignite, and for many generations, the industry has influenced the local environment and way of life. In addition to destroying and rebuilding farms, villages, and woods, the mines have given thousands of people a consistent source of skilled, blue-collar employment. Large-scale demonstrations have also taken place there, with protestors battling to save a portion of the nearby Hambach woodland, 90% of which was submerged by the mine. For the past fifteen years, tensions between environmentalists, the police, and RWE employees have been a commonplace backdrop to daily life. At one point, activists even took over Old Manheim; remnants of their “Hambi stays” graffiti can still be seen on the exteriors of certain homes.
