Prospector Trails
Equipment/Records · Mines worldwide
Almost every record for the largest machine that moves on land is held by a mining machine. They were built this big because a mine is a problem of volume: the more rock one machine can shift, the cheaper each tonne. Here are the giants, side by side and to scale.
01 · Side by side
Put mining's largest machines on one ground line and the scale gets hard to believe. The F60 conveyor bridge is longer than the Empire State Building is tall. Bagger 293 stands 96 m high. Big Muskie's boom alone was 94 m long, almost a football pitch. Next to them, the world's largest truck is a toy, and a person is a speck.
Sources: F60; Bagger 293; Big Muskie; BelAZ 75710.
02 · Heaviest
The heaviest machine that can move under its own power is a German bucket wheel excavator. TAKRAF delivered Bagger 293 in 1995 to the Hambach lignite mine, where its 18-bucket wheel can move about 240,000 cubic metres a day. Its older sister, Bagger 288, pictured, once drove 22 km across a motorway to a new mine.
Source: Guinness World Records. More: bucket wheel excavators.
03 · Longest
East Germany's lignite mines built five F60 overburden conveyor bridges. Each is about 502 m long, 80 m high and 13,600 tonnes, and spans the whole pit on rails, carrying the earth from one side straight across to the other.
The last one, at Lichterfeld in Lusatia, worked only from March 1991 to June 1992 before its mine closed. It is now a visitor mine and concert venue.
Source: Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60.
04 · Biggest bucket
The largest dragline ever built worked the coal hills of Ohio from 1969 to 1991. Big Muskie was about 148 m long and 68 m tall, weighed about 13,500 short tons, and each bite of its bucket lifted 220 cubic yards, about 170 cubic metres. It was scrapped in 1999; only the bucket survives.
Source: Big Muskie. More: draglines.
05 · Biggest shovel
The largest shovel ever built, the Marion 6360 known as The Captain, dug coal in Illinois from 1965 with a 180 cubic yard dipper and weighed about 12,700 tonnes. A hydraulic fire ended it in 1991.
Its smaller cousin survives. Big Brutus, a Bucyrus-Erie 1850-B about 16 storeys tall, worked in Kansas from 1963 to 1974 and is now the centre of a mining museum at West Mineral.
Sources: Guinness; Marion 6360; Big Brutus.
06 · Biggest diggers today
Today's pits are loaded by hydraulic excavators and electric rope shovels. The largest hydraulic machines weigh around 800 tonnes: Liebherr gives its R 9800 an operating weight of about 800 tonnes, and Komatsu's PC8000, seen here at Kalgoorlie's Super Pit, and Hitachi's EX8000 are in the same class.
They are sized to fill an ultra-class truck in a handful of passes.
Source: Liebherr.
07 · Biggest truck
The largest truck in the world is built in Belarus. The BelAZ 75710, unveiled in 2013, is rated for a nominal 450 tonnes, weighs about 360 tonnes empty and is 20.6 m long. Loaded, it weighs more than a fully fuelled Airbus A380.
Source: BelAZ 75710. More: haul trucks.
08 · Biggest tyre
The ultra-class trucks roll on the largest tyres made: size 59/80R63, just over 4 m tall and about 5.3 to 5.8 tonnes each. Each one is a wide load on the highway, and a big truck needs six.
Source: European Rubber Journal.
09 · Why so big
A big mine moves hundreds of millions of tonnes of rock over its life, and most of its costs come from moving it. One bigger machine with one operator moves each tonne more cheaply than several smaller ones, as long as the deposit can keep it busy for decades.
That is why the records cluster in lignite and coal, where deposits are huge, flat and soft. It is also why the age of single giants is passing: today's mines prefer fleets of large, identical machines that can be swapped, automated and moved.
Sources: Guinness; Big Muskie.
The full story
Mining machines hold most of the records for the largest moving machines on land. The reason is economic: in a large surface mine, most of the cost is in moving rock, so a single machine that can move more per hour, with one operator, lowers the cost of every tonne.
Bagger 293 is a bucket wheel excavator built by TAKRAF in Leipzig and delivered in 1995 to RWE's Hambach lignite mine. Guinness World Records lists it at 14,196 tonnes, the heaviest machine able to move under its own power. It is about 225 m long and 96 m tall and can move about 240,000 cubic metres of material a day. Its predecessor, Bagger 288 (Krupp, 1978), is of similar size.
The F60 overburden conveyor bridges, built by TAKRAF's predecessor in Lauchhammer for the lignite mines of Lusatia, are about 502 m long, 240 m wide and 80 m high, and weigh about 13,600 tonnes. Five were built. The last, at Lichterfeld, ran for only 15 months, from March 1991 to June 1992, and is now open to visitors.
Big Muskie, a Bucyrus-Erie 4250-W walking dragline, was about 148 m long and 68 m tall and weighed about 13,500 short tons. Its bucket held 220 cubic yards (about 170 m³). It worked in Ohio from 1969 to 1991 and was scrapped in 1999.
The Marion 6360, The Captain, is listed by Guinness World Records as the largest shovel, with a 180 cubic yard dipper; it was scrapped after a fire in 1991. Big Brutus, a Bucyrus-Erie 1850-B stripping shovel about 16 storeys tall, worked in Kansas from 1963 to 1974 and is preserved. Today's largest hydraulic excavators, including the Liebherr R 9800 (about 800 tonnes, according to Liebherr), Komatsu PC8000 and Hitachi EX8000, load ultra-class trucks in copper, iron ore, gold and coal mines.
The BelAZ 75710, unveiled in 2013, is the largest haul truck, rated for 450 tonnes, about 360 tonnes empty and 20.6 m long. The tyres on ultra-class trucks, size 59/80R63, are just over 4 m tall and weigh about 5.3 to 5.8 tonnes each.
More: all mining equipment, the largest mines in the world and the biggest copper pits.
Bagger 293, a bucket wheel excavator built by TAKRAF in 1995 for RWE's Hambach lignite mine in Germany. Guinness World Records lists it at 14,196 tonnes, the heaviest machine able to move under its own power. It is about 225 m long and 96 m tall.
The largest hydraulic mining excavators weigh around 800 tonnes. Liebherr gives its R 9800 an operating weight of about 800 tonnes; Komatsu's PC8000 and Hitachi's EX8000 are in the same class. They load ultra-class haul trucks in a few passes.
By length, the F60 overburden conveyor bridges of eastern Germany: about 502 m long and 13,600 tonnes. By weight under its own power, Bagger 293. By bucket size, the dragline Big Muskie, whose bucket held 220 cubic yards.
The BelAZ 75710 mining dump truck, rated for 450 tonnes of payload. It weighs about 360 tonnes empty and is about 20.6 m long.
Because a mine's costs are mostly about moving rock. One very large machine with one operator moves rock more cheaply per tonne than several smaller ones, as long as the deposit is big enough to keep it busy for decades.
Bagger 293 weighs 14,196 tonnes and digs 240,000 m³ a day. How the biggest land machines work, and why their time is ending.
A bucket the size of a garage, thrown on ropes from a boom longer than a football pitch. Big Muskie and the machines that walk.
The BelAZ 75710 carries 450 tonnes, a Cat 797F 363. How the biggest dump trucks in the world work, and what their tyres cost.
Thousands of 300-tonne trucks now drive themselves. How autonomous haulage works, where it started and where it is growing fastest.
Before rock can be dug it has to be broken. How mines drill rows of holes and time a blast to the millisecond, at industry level.
Boulders the size of a car go in, gravel comes out. How jaw, gyratory and cone crushers work, and why the biggest take 17,000 tonnes an hour.
Turning drums as wide as a four-storey building grind ore to powder. How ball and SAG mills work, and why they use so much power.
Most of the world's copper, zinc and lead is lifted out of the ore on air bubbles. How flotation works, where it came from, and the tailings it leaves behind.
For centuries people picked ore from waste by hand. Now cameras and X-rays look at every rock on a belt, and puffs of air knock out the waste, or a 2,492-carat diamond.
Hoists that wind ore up from 4 km down, drill jumbos, low-slung loaders, rock bolters, giant fans and battery-electric fleets: the machines that work underground.
A shearer runs back and forth along a coal face 300 m long, under a steel roof of hydraulic shields that walk forward behind it. How longwalls work, and what happens above them.
A mine is only worth what it can ship. Belts 100 km long, trains so long they vanish over the horizon, and ships that carry 400,000 tonnes move the rock to the world.
Mines buy their trucks, drills, crushers and explosives from a small group of makers, some of them over 150 years old. Where they began, and how a few big deals shaped them.
Pictures in this story: Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress, no known restrictions (Public domain); Pappnaas666, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0); Ralf Heesen, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0); US National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain); Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress, no known restrictions (Public domain); Bahnfrend, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0); Лапоть, Wikimedia Commons (CC0); ajmexico, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Bucket wheel excavators by bluecloud9, CC BY-SA 2.0; Draglines by Roy Luck, CC BY 2.0; Haul trucks by Lechhabmed, CC BY-SA 4.0; Autonomous trucks by RobSimmons223311, CC BY-SA 4.0; Drilling and blasting by Siim Roov, CC BY-SA 4.0; Crushers by photosmith2011, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Ball mills and SAG mills by photosmith2011, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Froth flotation and tailings by Nina111955, CC BY-SA 4.0; Ore sorting by Tomra Sorting GmbH, CC BY-SA 4.0; Underground mining equipment by Kaupo Kikkas, CC BY-SA 4.0; Longwall mining by Bochum1805, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Conveyors, rail and ports by Kabelleger / David Gubler, CC BY-SA 4.0; Who supplies the mines by Alexandre Prevot, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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