World's Largest Digging Machine

(or wouldn't you like one of these babies in your garden shed?)

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. Some factoids:



The machine is 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

Maximum digging speed is 10 meters per minute

Can move more than 76,000 cubic meters of coal, rock, and earth per day