Krupp giant trencher

I thought machines of such scale only happens in Japanese cartoons… like Howl’s moving castle or Transformers… so when I saw this pic, I was quite amazed. What’s more… it was built in 1978 if the blog with the story claims correctly.

This enormous mining machine (300 meters long, weight: 45,500 tons) is capable of moving on its treads to the various open-air mine locations.
The last such epic transition happened in 2001, when it crawled from one mine to the other – across 22 kilometers of fields, roads, railway crossings, villages and countryside… As it could not go around the obstacles, it headed in a straight line, so the workers prepared the way by piling up sand cushions on top of highways and train tracks, removing power-lines and seeding the fields with special grass to make its progress smoother.

The world destroyer! Cool! Built during the era of the global race for technological supremacy…

Extract from The Thrilling Wonder