Bagger 288 (Excavator 288), previously known as the MAN TAKRAF RB288 built by the German company

Krupp Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp (formerly Fried. Krupp AG and Friedrich Krupp GmbH), trade name, trading as Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer dur ...

for the energy and mining firm Rheinbraun, is a bucket-wheel excavator or mobile

strip mining Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...

machine. When its construction was completed in 1978, Bagger 288 superseded Big Muskie as the heaviest land vehicle in the world, at 13,500 tons. It took five years to design and manufacture and five years to assemble, with total cost reaching $100 million. In 1995, it was itself superseded by the slightly heavier Bagger 293 (14,200 tons). XCMG's XGC88000 Crawler Crane remains the largest self-propelled land vehicle in the world, since bucket-wheel excavators are powered by an external power source, and the Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60s hold the title of largest land vehicle of any type by physical dimensions. Like its siblings, the Bagger 288 require a disproportionately small number of people to operate, at just five total. Whilst Bagger 288 is considered a "sibling vehicle" with Bagger 293, it is unclear if 288 receives the same moniker as 293's Type SRs 8000 by TAKRAF.

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The Bagger 288 was built for the job of removing overburden before coal mining at the Hambach surface mine in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It can excavate 240,000 tons of coal or 240,000 cubic metres of overburden daily – the equivalent of a soccer field dug to deep. The coal produced in one day fills 2400 coal wagons. The excavator is up to 220 m (721 ft) long (slightly shorter than Baggers 287 and 293) and approximately 96 m (315 feet) high. In fact, the Bagger 288 alongside its siblings, are so large, that it has its own on-board toiletry and kitchenette rooms. The Bagger's operation requires 16.56 megawatts of externally supplied

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

.Die grössten Bagger der Welt (The biggest excavators in the world)
It can travel per minute (0.1 to 0.6 km/h). The chassis of the main section is wide and sits on three rows of four caterpillar track assemblies, each wide. The large surface area of the tracks means the

ground pressure Ground pressure is the pressure exerted on the ground by the tires or tracks of a motorized vehicle, and is one measure of its potential mobility, especially over soft ground. It also applies to the feet of a walking person or machine. Pressure ...

of the Bagger 288 is very small (1.71 bar or 24.8 psi); this allows the excavator to travel over gravel, earth and even grass without leaving a significant track. It has a minimum turning radius of approximately 50 metres, and can climb a maximum gradient of 1:18 (5° incline). The excavating head itself is in diameter and has 18 buckets each holding of overburden. By February 2001, the excavator had completely exposed the coal source at the Tagebau Hambach mine and was no longer needed there. In three weeks it made a trip to the Tagebau Garzweiler, travelling across Autobahn 61, the river Erft, a railroad line, and several roads. The move cost nearly 15 million

German mark The Deutsche Mark (; "German mark"), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later of unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was typically c ...

s and required a team of seventy workers. Rivers were crossed by placing large steel pipes for the water to flow through and providing a smooth surface over the pipes with rocks and gravel. Special grass was seeded to smooth its passage over valuable terrain. Moving Bagger 288 in one piece was more economical than disassembling the excavator and moving it piece by piece. The Bagger 288 is one of a group of similar sized and built vehicles, such as Bagger 281 (built in 1958), Bagger 285 (1975), Bagger 287 (1976), Bagger 293 (1995), etc.

In popular culture

* In 2009, the British comedian Joel Veitch published a song dedicated to the Bagger 288 on the album ''Spongs In the Key of Life''. In the lyrics of the song, Bagger 288 is built to protect mankind from Godzillas and doom robots from the future. In the music video, the song is accompanied by clips from a German TV documentary about bucket excavators in the Ruhr area. * In the film '' Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance'' (2012), the rider possesses a Bagger 288, turning it into a fiery vehicle of destruction against his enemies. *In the Book ''After the Revolution'' by Robert Evans, the post-human city "The City of Wheels" is built on a Bagger 288. *In the film Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the Bagger 288 is visible in the background of District 12 scenes.

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{{coord, 51.065, 6.5078, display=title Bucket-wheel excavators Coal mining in Germany Krupp 1978 establishments in West Germany Vehicles introduced in 1978 ja:バケットホイールエクスカベーター#Bagger 288

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In popular culture

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