#Heavy equipment

[alphabull1]

[copperbadge]

Windfallswest over on AO3 linked this in the comments of The Olive Harvest, 2023 and I can't stop laughing. They called it the "mobile tree carwash" but I think of it as the TREE SNUGGLER.

[ID: A video set to music with narration about the machine being shown; it is a "high density olive harvester" which looks like a large tractor. The tractor is designed as a tall arch and rolls directly "over" the olive trees, pulling them gently into a carwash-like interior which shakes the olives free and collects them all at once. It also shows how the belts clean the olives and convey them to a hopper.]

[takenoprizners]

Celebrating Labor Day_2

[rollerman1]

Siamese'd Caterpillar D9's. Two dozers, one blade, one operator. Used mostly in mine reclamation work.

[supplyside]

Kress slab carrier

[misforgotten2]

Also known as the Finger Remover.

1904

[mariobabyface]

もっともっと空をみて🌌‼︎!

秋から師走のクレーン群🏗️ 2023/10〜12

銀座、明治神宮、渋谷、赤坂、池袋、芝公園、水道橋、丸の内、世田谷、神宮前、等々力緑地、富ヶ谷、西麻布…

Please look at the sky more and more！

[jamesmillerphoto]

Drill May 2024 | Knoxville, Tennessee Digital

[grainelevator]

Liebherr 966 crawler excavator

[7itch0zero]

[alphabull1]

[mikeorazzi]

Canon Vixia HF G70 Camcorder Logging Caterpillar Skidder #logginglife #l...

[eeeccoo]

[rollerman1]

[reactor-four-official]

Rare photographs of one of the bathyscaphes used to lower liquidators into the ruins of Reactor 4.

The Sarcophagus of Chernobyl Unit 4 was constructed on top of the ruined reactor hall, using the existing structure as support for its massive weight. Engineers were unsure at the beginning of construction if the building could even support parts of the Sarcophagus. Initially, engineers could only find locations to place the prefabricated pieces of the Sarcophagus using photos taken from the helicopters above the reactor building. On a few occasions, men were sent to scout out potential locations for these structures on foot via passages in the plant. This proved extremely dangerous, and so another solution was brought forward by NIKIMT, a Soviet think tank responsible for several other innovative solutions within the zone; a twenty-one ton lead box with a single leaded glass window 30 centimeters thick. It was equipped with air filters that filtered the air to nearly 100% purity, allowing liquidators to work around the reactor for several hours at a time. Designed to accommodate up to four men, they were affectionately named the batiskaf, or bathyscaphe. These monstrous boxes would be attached to the hook of one of the cranes operating at the site by a short cable and lowered into the reactor hall. This allowed engineers to more closely assess the condition of the structure and find locations to rest the massive beams that held the roof of the Sarcophagus up. Those who worked in the bathyscaphe, known jokingly as “Cosmonauts”, communicated with the operators of the cranes via radio. Work could also be conducted through ports in the walls, through which a manipulator arm could be extended. It was also used on the rare occasion that welding was required on the Sarcophagus. Without this equipment, the Sarcophagus would not have been completed safely. It was also used after the completion of the Sarcophagus to monitor the condition of the construction and reactor hall, until it was retired in 1988 due to instability issues.

Once again, my apologies for low quality images. A few of these images are so rare that I could only find them in one place.

[Image descriptions: Top left image: The bathyscaphe is a large white metal box about seven feet tall, four feet long, and four feet deep, with a single square window. It has several lifting cables attached to its roof and several pipes jut out from it pointing towards the ground to keep it from falling over.

Top right image: they bathyscaphe in ‘flight’.

Bottom left image: The bathyscaphe from another angle, showing the single porthole.

Bottom right image: This is a photo of the bathyschape’s interior. Two manipulator arms sit below the window, and a small stool is welded onto the floor where an operator could sit.

PS feedback on my image descriptions is very much appreciated and helpful. I am new to this, but I think everyone has the right to learn and experience history and if you have any suggestions or comments on how to improve my descriptions please do not hesitate to reach out! I am more than happy to provide more detailed image descriptions as well upon request. Many thanks for your interest!]

[worms-go-here]

Since we all like Bagger 288...

Heres Big Brutus!

Big Brutus is an electric shovel that was used in the 60's and 70's for coal mining in southeast Kansas. They've made it into a centerpiece for a coal mining museum in the town of West Mineral, Kansas.

Big Brutus is HUGE. He's 16 stories tall, 11 million pounds, and his bucket (as you can see here) easily accommodates a four-piece band. Brutus is so huge that you can see him over the trees as you approach the museum from miles away.

Besides his impressive size (huge, massive, you don't get how massive unless you go see) Brutus boasts some other crazy stats. At the museum, they've lined the path from the museum building to the shovel with his old cable. This hoist cable was used to lift his bucket and was 800 feet, weighed 25 pounds per foot, and had to be replaced every 6 months before failure.

Big Brutus's crawlers are 7 feet tall. He has four crawlers with two sets of tracks each, and each track has 32 pads. Each pad is 5.5 ft long and weighs 2,008 pounds. These gave Brutus a top speed of .22 mph. Each crawler had an oil tank that held 2,220 gallons of oil.

Despite being absolutely massive, Brutus was operated by a crew of only three people: The Oiler, who monitored the inside of the machine to make sure it was properly lubricated at all times, The Operator, who sat in the driver's seat and operated the bucket, and The Groundsman, who walked/drove alongside the machine and coordinated with the Operator to determine Brutus's path and actions. There was a sort of honorary fourth crew member, The Electrician, who did repairs on the machine's wiring, but as he wasn't required when the machine was actively working his position stays honorary.

Here's some pictures of the inside of Big Brutus where The Oiler would be working. It's a large space but it's full of all sorts of machine bits. I visited Brutus on my lonesome so I didn't have anyone to use for scale, but most of these bits and bobs are several feet taller than a human.

And here's some pictures of The Operator's area

Aaand here's a few more pictures of Brutus being BIG

If you're in America and can't go to Germany to visit Bagger 288 (I think that's where he's based), you can visit Big Brutus instead! He's big and cool! and orange