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Giant Machines
One thing that has always amazed me is the ability of human beings to construct large objects. Stationary objects are one thing: skyscrapers, bridges, dams, even scientific devices like the Large Hadron Collider in Europe are things to marvel at. But large manmade objects that move impress me even more.
When my submarine arrived in Newport News Shipyard and Drydock for upgrades, I went to see this legendary crane named Goliath. It was the crane used to lift the island of an aircraft carrier and gently lower it into place (the ultimate in modular construction). Since then, it’s been replaced by the even larger Big Blue. Here are a couple of pictures of Big Blue in action on the USS Gerald R. Ford:
In the late ’90s, I became aware of a bigger piece of macroengineering equipment, the Bagger 293 earthmover, built in Germany (they love building big things). Here’s a picture of the earthmover transporting itself to a new dig site and a link for info:
One interesting thing about the 80-mile journey to the new dig site – no one noticed until the Bagger finally arrived, but the large machine had captured a bulldozer. The dozer was effectively camouflaged by the sheer spectacle of the Bagger:
You can do an internet search and find dozens of examples of other macroengineered machines: giant dump trucks, huge tunnel borers, jumbo aircraft, supertankers, and such. But the crane and earthmover stand out to me as examples of someone thinking, “You know, we could build this really big thing,” then go out and do it.
Published in Technology
SO. COOL.
The big stuff great, but get the most impressed with the big equipment that have long service lives. Like the panama Canal’s Titan crane that has been in service since WW2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_the_German_(crane_vessel)
Incredible OP and thread — my strongest thanks!
Now, having said that, I don’t at all wish to hijack the thread, but when I landed on the ZME Science homepage, it was impossible not to notice this…:
https://www.zmescience.com/science/hamster-face-mask-covid-study-15324/
No idea about either the peer-review status of this particular study or any plans anywhere to attempt replication — but the controversy may only just be starting to get interesting.
No, I typically skip them. Comments often consist of blathering nabobs of negativism . . .
I retired from Savannah River Site a couple of years ago. One of the facilities on site, the Defense Waste Processing Facility, has a vehicle called the Shielded Canister Transporter to safely carry one canister of super-radioactive waste to a Glass Waste Storage Building. It’s nowhere near the size of the Bagger 293, but it’s still a pretty cool specialized vehicle:
More info on DWPF can be found here:
https://www.srs.gov/general/news/factsheets/srr_dwpf.pdf
A little trivia – my office was located in a trailer next to the parking lot for DWPF. My emergency sheltering location was inside the DWPF . . .
They are worth reading in that case as the photos included were mislabeled and contradicted the text.
I grew up in a mining camp in southwestern New Mexico. The Electra Haul dump trucks used in the huge open pit copper mine across from the camp were so big and so expensive to run that, at the end of a shift, a chase van would bring the new crew to the truck, wherever it was in the pit, rather than have the truck go back to some central location.
There was a terrible accident when a chase van tried to pass a truck and the truck turned into the van. Two men in the back of the van were able to jump clear, but the driver and passenger were crushed along with the van itself. The dump truck was so massive that the only reason the driver knew that something was wrong was that the van severed a hydraulic line as it was sucked up into the front wheel well.
When I was in High School I participated in Junior Achievement. Our sponsoring company was Harnischfager, manufacturer of large shovels and cranes. We got to take a tour of their factory in Milwaukee, this would have been circa 1978. One thing I remember was watching a guy walking down the factory aisle carrying a micrometer – slung over his shoulder. It was about 5 or 6 feet long.
Do these animated graphic files work on Ricochet? Because this one warms my curmudgeonly heart.
I particularly love its complete disregard for workplace safety in its pursuit of serving a frankly higher cause.
That there is some mad precision skillz with the bucket.
And what delicacy of control.
There was an episode of Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs where he was operating a magnetic crane in a scrapyard. When he got done he asked the usual operator how did on a scale of 1 to 10. The operator replied “Is ‘Sucks’ a number?”
Here is another nifty giant machine:
But very dangerous.
How’d you do that? I got a funny short one, but when I try to upload using “Add Media”, it doesn’t work.
Too cool!
We took a Panama Canal cruise last year. One thing I learned was the canals do not use any pumps. They aren’t needed because Gatun Lake has a huge supply of water from natural runoff. They simply flood from upstream and release to downstream to make the level changes.
Drag and drop, if it’s on the Internet, but ensure it is full size, or it won’t play.
It’s in my files. I’ll try again in a virus post.