Man Made - Earthmovers

get ready for a show with machines blown right out of proportion massive buckets grinding drills and huge tires it's like power personified they're absolutely fascinating they're engineering marvels they're they're absolutely superb these machines have helped transform our planets raw materials into skyscrapers highways and even electricity sometimes it comes at an environmental cost yet each of these beasts is an engineering marvel worthy of earning a spot on our top 10 list of the world's mightiest earthmoving machines you they can move mountains of rock and dirt so just who's the best at the job we traveled the world and brought together a panel of experts to help us grapple with some of the world's largest and most powerful earthmoving machines we're putting them through some unique tests to making a top 10 list of the best diggers isn't going to be easy but it's certainly gonna be fun wasting no time we began our countdown with the world's biggest land vehicle the bagger 293 the bagger 293 is a bucket-wheel excavator it's the signs of an ocean liner online it's kind of an abstract type of machine it actually kind of looks like a small mobile city with a giant buzzsaw attached to the front end I go to nine three is in the Guinness Book of World Records because it's the biggest land pound machine ever this german giant hits the scale at a whopping 31 million pounds that's equal to the weight of about 2,000 adult elephants more than two professional football fields in length and as tall as a 30-story building this monster works in the coal mines of western germany what sets the two 9-3 apart from the other machines is the sheer size of it I mean this machine can produce up to 12 tons of material it's spitting out ten mid-sized car in a second the banker has 18 massive buckets all working 24/7 on a wheel 70 feet in diameter each bucket can pick up over 15,000 pounds of material in one scoop these massive diggers remove both the earth above buried coal seams as well as the coal itself the machines primary purpose is to mine for coal unlike most excavators though the bagger doesn't just dig and load trucks it has its own unique and economical conveyor belt system it is far cheaper to convey material than to truck it if the truck weighs about as much as it carries whereas a conveyor weighs a lot less in comparison to what it can produce and can carry the beggar to 9-3 feeds miles of conveyor belts at the Hambach mine from there the coal is loaded onto trains and shipped to three local power stations the coal is used for power stations we produce yearly about 40 million tons of coal and about 30 million go for energy into power stations the banker to nine three is powered by 17 thousand kilowatts it draws its juice from the very power plants it fuels with coal although this giant extracts enough coal to provide electric energy to several million homes it's run by a very small team on this excavator only five people are working and with these five people and three shifts that means 15 people around the clock we produce this high capacity this may be a small crew but they also have to be fit the bagger has more than 2,000 steps and about a half mile of walkways up to a height of 230 feet it's not unusual for the team to walk over six miles during a shift I think there are not that many on to a mine elsewhere however their maximum speed is less than half a mile per hour a 13 mile trip can take about three weeks because of the challenges of crossing roads and avoiding power lines and the slow speed of the machine still it's a champion of diggers bucket-wheel excavator is under certain conditions the most productive way to extract huge masses of material that massive digging comes at a price the beggar admits large amounts of very fine dust into the atmosphere to dampen down these particles workers keep the bagger and the surrounding areas wet the coal that's produced presents its own environmental issues to each tonne of coal burned in a power plant releases one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere this contributes a global warming of all the fossil fuels coal puts out the most carbon dioxide the size and the productivity of the 293 make it the king of the diggers in terms of mass but because of its sheer cost and lack of mobility bagger only reaches number 10 on our list we've got nine more diggers still to come including the machine that helped launch man into space the countdown of the greatest ever earthmovers continues with number nine diving deep underground is the Gabi one tunnel boring machine all the other machines work on the surface of the earth now to actually go under this is a total different ballgame the Gabi one is the longest tunnel boring machine on earth this state-of-the-art digger is working on a very special project the world's longest train tunnel the Gabi one is working in the gutters project in Switzerland it's not the biggest machine ever built but it's maybe the most sophisticated because it's a system about 440 meter in length and 9.5 80 meters in width this machine has a massive task cutting through more than 30 miles of some of the hardest walk on earth it will take six years for Gabi one to burrow a tunnel even longer than the one under the English Channel the completed tunnel will be the world's longest at 35 miles and will allow trains to travel at speeds of up to 155 miles per hour deep under Switzerland's picturesque goddard pass the whole system weighs about 5,200 tons it is repulsed by ten single motors and has a performance of five thousand horses so what you have under the earth there is not just a drilling machine but it's a really powerful construction system Gabi one is among the most technologically advanced boring machines in the world it's cutting head located right at the front is made up of about 60 steel disk cutters constructed from an ultra hard and ultra-secret steel alloy these cutters slice through the rock the rotating movement of the head also pushes the waste through the machine and onto a conveyor belt this machine is capable to move 10 meters per day in average and in good condition it moves 40 meters it has one of the most demanding jobs of any of the tunnel-boring machines to date and yes it is special the other way of tunneling is essentially to have people with blasting than drills rather than a machine which rotates and cuts a tube out which this does it's better than that because you don't need explosives and you also don't put human beings at risk so it's a better type of machine will always need tunnels to connect us and sophisticated technology like Gabi one makes tunnel building safer and more precise there are disadvantages to this gigantic piece of equipment to the tunnel boring machine is a system and systems are of course not that flexible our single machines like excavators for example you can't just make a standard machine that will go through any type of rock or any type of strata you've got to design and build one for that particular job so that's a disadvantage so each one is a limited machine for a limited purpose so in that sense you know you could compare it to other ones which are much more versatile machine this machine may be presently rewriting the history books but since it can't be easily moved or retooled for new projects Gaby one only stands at number 9 on our top 10 list number eight on our list of the greatest ever earth movers is one with a massive appetite the silver Spade this machine is no longer in operation yet its track record still earns it a place on our list the struggle kind of reminds me of it was like a large dinosaur you know grazing on overburden in a coal mine this mechanical dinosaur was taller than a 12 story building and weighed just under an incredible 16 million pounds it's huge 105 cubic yard dipper was capable of digging almost 350,000 pounds in a single scoop and its lifespan seemed infinite it's great because it's lasted so long showing a car that'll last 30 40 years and be used 24 hours a day and seven days a week in its 40 years of hard labor in the mines of Ohio the silver Spade moved over 600 million cubic yards of rock that's more than twice as much rock as they dug up to build the Panama Canal the monstrous diggers like this could scrape shovel and haul off huge amounts of Earth while strip mining sometimes damaged the land could be avoided or fixed other times the effect was devastating it in spite of their environmental impact they were superstars it was probably one of the first she's ever built if there was a Hall of Fame for stripping shovels it's a candidate to be in the Hall of Fame its influence has even reached the moon the eight crawlers mounted on four corners was the basic inspiration of the crawler transporters currently in use at Kennedy Space Center literally stripping shovel technology was used to build these transporters for man's quest of space the Silver Spades awesome power was based on the design of the human leg it was first of two only built by Bucyrus that had a thing called an e action crowd which is that the mechanism which which which actually holds the bucket that it digs by the part of the machine that actually held the bucket the dipper handle acted like a human knee swinging backward and forward keeping the knee in all its parts moving was a challenge the silver Spade had an oiler continuously lubricating the machine without it the 700,000 separate parts would stop working the crawler tracks alone required over 6,000 gallons of oil to move smoothly and because of its age this veteran of the coalface needed regular check-ups that meant inspecting the 200 foot high boom daily when you ascend on our boom you make absolutely sure of your footing in your hand holds to make sure that you don't slip and it can be overwhelming at times to look down straight down and how far you are it's it's quite an experience to be up there it is a good exercise in fact I used to take a lot of pride in how fast I can get up there that that probably wasn't the right approach to take but as you get a little older you need to rest the time 4 to 4 you get this tub the hulking silver spate was among the last of a breed stripping shovels are being phased out and replaced by machines that can cope better with deeper deposits the disadvantage of this type of machine is that it is quite restricted when it comes to a sworkit these machines are nice but they're almost dinosaurs and the silver Spain is the last of its of its kind now that the silver spade is retired its stuck at number eight at number seven one of the world's largest and most powerful scrapers in production today the Caterpillar six five seven the line has been around almost as long as all trucks and bulldozers 697 is the biggest scraper around moment and compared with previous scrapers it's just that much more reliable because it's got new ranges it's got new control technologies this is a rather nice clever very useful machine it's like power personified because it's right there you can reach out and touch it the secret behind the muscle of this particular scraper two powerful engines one in the front one in the back simultaneously pulling and pushing the machine it's a bit like a piece of toast and butter you know a little bit too much butter on so you scrape it off in other words it's the scraping motion it's taking a scraping of the earth off transporting it and putting it down as a layer somewhere else the six five seven doesn't just scrape it also Dix loads carries and dumps huge amounts of earth without the assistance of any other machines scrapers very very efficient machine for moving and dirt over a short distance and if you're building a road building a dam or something like that you want to move dirt from here to there scrape is going to do it and it's going to do it very efficiently the secret of its digging power resides in its reinforced steel blade or cutting edge this cutting edge can last anywhere from 400 to 500 working hours before it has to be replaced the cutting edge is the bottom part of the bowl it's the part that actually goes into the ground when the bowl is lowered into the ground the cutting edge is the leading edge of the scraper that goes into the material and forces the material up into the bowl the blade is about 2 and 1/2 inches thick this doesn't have to be sharp the sheer force of the machine will load the machine with no problem at all when digging conditions are too tough for a single scraper the 6 5 7 buddies up with another machine in what is known as a push-pull operation the scrapers simply hook up and like the name says one pushes while the other pulls scrapers have worked non-stop since 1922 and have even seen action in numerous Wars with their speed and maneuverability they're perfect for the construction of roads ramps and landing strips in Vietnam the scraper found a rather unusual roll I was 18 years old wet-behind-the-ears and one night we were done moving dirt for the day and get here's some shooting going on somewhere nearby not too far away and I got my curiosity of the year 1968 Philip Orie and a colleague got in their machines and headed for the source of the gunfight there they found a platoon under fire they loaded the men into the ball portion of the scraper protected by the thick metal sides and got them out safely ended up being in the right place at the right time with a land scraper of all things and was able to get these guys out of danger and that's just something that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life inside Clayton's is like armor-plated the machine saved the soldiers lives and made Phillip Ori a hero but was it luck poor marksmanship or the scrapers tank-like hull that got everyone out safely we wanted the real answer block down initiative okay it's armor-piercing shell ready Kevin a marksman using an ak-47 rifle with armor-piercing bullets will put a section of the scrapers side to the test these bullets are designed to go through armored personnel carriers and tanks I hate to have been on the receiving under that what we either get it or scared it real bad cuz it fell down I don't know then one day we were shooting at over Vietnam that was PT green that may have had a difference nice clean Bowl let's trip it over and see if it went right through not even a mark not even a dent Wow okay look at that yeah Wow the scraper not only saves lives and works in construction it also helps redistribute the soil after mining operations built bigger and better than the model or reused in Vietnam the six five seven is without a doubt the all-time scraper champion it sits at number 7 on our list because it's limited in how deep it can dig and in the types of material it can successfully scrape up I will put the scraper in general high up on the list simply because it's a it is a relatively simple machine it's not as sophisticated or as complex as some of the other machines in the list the power list of the top 10 greatest earth movers ever continues with a machine that is all about mobility and flexibility number 6 the Letourneau l23 50 wheel loader the great thing about the L 235 always it's the ultimate four-wheel drive forget homers their toys you want a four-wheel drive the L to 3500 is the one a wheel loader is essentially a machine on four wheels with an engine drivers cap and at the front of it a bucket this particular wheel order is designed to work in very large mine the Letourneau wheel loaders are one of mining industries kind of jack-of-all-trades with a kind of a top speed right around 11 miles per hour slow by automotive standards but pretty fast for earthmoving machines it can get there faster get the job done and go off and do something else this four-wheel drive mammoth is all about raw power it can lift loads of 160,000 pounds the equivalent weight of 30 cars to heights of around 44 feet and fill a five hundred thousand pound truck in less than one minute this speed is made possible by a unique design feature the l20 350 is articulated that is the wheels don't actually steer it's the frame that steers a pivots that means the loader can turn on a short radius allowing it to do its job much quicker each tire is 13 feet tall weighs almost 17,000 pounds has a load capacity of over 325 thousand pounds and costs $60,000 with a six inch thickness there's enough steel and rubber in each of these wheels to make 700 car tires and to avoid overheating the tires are filled with nitrogen a gas unlike air that remains cool under tremendous pressures and extreme friction the tires on the L 20 350 were a big challenge they weren't available at the time Firestone actually built these and design them for specifically for the L 2350 the Letourneau L 2350 is the largest wheel driven front-end loader in the world it weighs 500 78,000 this massive loader uses power gracefully to whenever the brakes are hit the Letourneau captures that energy and uses it to power the hydraulic lift believe it or not this monstrous digger is actually a fuel saving hybrid it does have its drawbacks though the disadvantage is all that it can only take material that is a certain looseness it can't go into solid rock unless it's blasted and so on the other disadvantage would be of course that it's on rubber wheels and that you know you can only unlike caterpillar tracks you can only run the machines in certain conditions of ground because of the cost of the tires and lack of adaptability this giant of the digging fraternity is stuck at number six we continue with a relative youngster at number five the Bucyrus 8200 walking dragline aka liberty it's a relatively simple thing that does a fantastically large significant job if the conditions are fine very cheap place to keep one of the cheapest forms of earth-moving liberty is big it's got a 355 foot boom and it hangs a 77 cubic yard bucket on the end of that it's big you wouldn't want to run it move your foot I see tremendous grace when I see that bucket going out and coming back I mean I almost see a fisherman casting a line I see an extraordinary grace for a machine that's that six and seven stories tall going out and pulling dirt back and dumping it 200 yards from the point of digs the point of dunk I think it's extraordinary Liberty can move over 250,000 pounds of Earth over a distance of 200 yards in less than 60 seconds and the way it functions is based on a very simple concept a drag line works by having a bucket on the end of a steel rope which goes to the top of a boom our jib then it uses a drag rope to pull the bucket up the slope and fill it the engineering that goes onto them is absolutely amazing and then although the actual concept is rather simple is very clever simple and efficient this walking drag line is perfect for coal mining and it's been a boon at the center mine in North Dakota here most of the electricity is generated by lignite coal the dragline actually uncovers the overburden or the dirt that's above the coal and in our operation that can vary anywhere from 30 feet up to a hundred feet of dirt over the coal seams so the dragline the 8200 the Liberty drag line is part of the whole process in fact it's the beginning of the process coal mining comes with an environmental price tag but such mining allows North Dakota to help produce massive amounts of electricity and the Liberty produces the power in a unique way it actually walks while at work the reason that Liberty is walking machine rather than one on tracks is because of the sheer weight to the Machine Liberty weighs nine million pounds and to get that kind of weight spread out over tracks is physically impossible to do and so the dragline designers decided to set the Machine on a large round disk called a tub and then to move it they designed this walking system a marking dragline doesn't really walk because like a kangaroo it hops it goes backwards then you the comes come round the feet drop down and then it lifts itself up at an angle on the edge of this top that slides back drops down and the feet come round on the cams and truck this should be called hopping draglines but it would sound a bit odd I think the principles behind Liberty are simple yet this animal is loaded with state-of-the-art technology the potential for technology on this machine is just starting to be explored the dragline world is entered the information age and through the remote diagnostic system we can get technical support from any place in the world compared with the other draglines it's a quantum leap in design and technology Liberty is certainly technologically advanced and exceptionally powerful but its appeal is not universal the weak points are walking dry Noire is that they are limited in their application you don't see walking draglines putting sewers in the street for example you want our street back Liberty does the job in North Dakota you do to its size and weight this walking drag line can only operate in certain special conditions for that reason it sits at number five our fourth greatest ever digger has taken mining technology to a new level a monster of disproportionate dimensions here is the Terrax Rh 400 hydraulic excavator it's the biggest machine of its type nobody else has built anything as big or as powerful as that the Tareq's Rh 400 is a pioneer it it's pushed the boundaries of technology Tarek's designed and built this machine so it could lift a staggering 85 tons of Earth in a single scoop that's like lifting about 11 large elephants at once the RH 400 works in one of the toughest areas for digging on the planet the Alberta oil sands in Northwest Canada and was designed specifically for that area it's a very difficult material to dig it changes its consistency between the seasons in the wintertime it tends to break out into big pieces that's difficult for the machine to handle and the summer time the oil sand is like a putty and it's a very heavy push all the way through for the bucket to penetrate into the material the RH 400 is a key player in the excavation of these oily sands but these operations are leaving a big environmental footprint to get one barrel of oil you need to mine two tons of tar sand and the carbon dioxide emitted by the operation will total more than all of Canada's cars by 2011 in spite of this impact on the land the digger does its job well the keys to its success are the huge bucket and strong arms they're powered by the digging world's largest hydraulic system the RH 400 is a hydraulic excavator meaning it uses the power of hydraulic fluid fluid power if you will as opposed to a cable shovel which uses cable or wire rope the sense of hydraulics is a very complicated thing but I'm going to try and demonstrate it quite simply today here we're going to show very simply how it produces a linear form of movement by simply creating pressure at one end and transmitting that via the fluid the liquid to a cylinder there which at the end of the cylinder creates the movement so I press here I'm putting pressure on that and that's being transmitted right and the tube and there's a movement at the end which could work a machine or whatever generally the more hydraulic pressure machine has the more power it has the RH 400 can load one of the world's biggest trucks with only four scoops it could compare the arch for 100 machine to a living entity when you look at the life fluid as being the hydraulic oil the heart of the hydraulic system would be the hydraulic pumps there's 8 main pumps on the RH 400 producing about 920 liters a minute that gives you a total flow or circulation of oil of about 7500 liters a minute to move the bucket and boom attachment hydraulics is one thing the RH 400 has other impressive features as well it's also very mobile compared to a lot of other machines if it has to move to another part of the mine their hydraulic motors that work the tracks and they're relatively efficient and fast its tracks also self-regulate their tension when seasonal weather conditions change the consistency and firmness of the oil sands its disadvantages that the hydraulics work under very high pressure so therefore extreme safety precautions have to be taken whenever working on all the maintenance of the machine the RH 400 can seem to do the impossible and it's hydraulic system is the digging world's most powerful but it's complicated and dangerous to service to for these reasons this earth mover is bogged down at number four the countdown continues from powerful hydraulic Pistons to colossal brute strength standing at number three the Komatsu D 575 a three super dozer this is no ordinary digging machine with the blade about as wide as a three-car garage this is the sumo champion of all bulldozers know what a bulldozer something with tracks with a big blade that pushes dirt but you know there's boulders and then they're super dozers it's not one of the small dozers you see in construction sites it's ten times the size of those with a 1,150 horsepower turbocharged after cooled engine this brute can actually push its own weight about 350,000 pounds with each shove of the blade this thing is fantastic it's it's John Wayne you know bring on the Marines kind of thing it's a big deal usually a bulldozer just moves dirt this Komatsu dozer with a unique blade design that tilts can also scoop up dirt and actually carry it up off the ground and the reason that's a good idea is you're not now pushing against the ground and you don't have a lot of resistance you're not trying to roll the dirt it's an incredibly efficient machine and it does its job very well they work in mines landfills and construction sites around the world where their specialty is shoving massive amounts of material in a straight line it definitely improved the production on our minds so you can do so much more work with basically one Operator and that's what makes it feasible to have the machines this machine isn't just about productivity it's also about comfort after all the Komatsu goes over some pretty bumpy terrain what we are trying to do is keep the track on the ground whenever the track is off the ground and slams back into the ground you get shocked up to the operator to decrease vibration rubber shock absorbers were added giving this machine better traction and a less bouncy ride than its predecessors a smooth ride may be guaranteed by komatsu but what about handling big objects in its path we decided to test out this dozer strength with a pretty unconventional test involving a pickup truck yeah I think that's a pretty silly idea that would definitely fall into the unapproved application format of a D 575 bulldozers take advantage of their weight when dozing as the heavier the machine the more traction it has to push heavy loads and although it exerts only about 20 pounds per square inch the deep 575 s massive overall weight quickly and effortlessly turns the truck into roadkill these are the big guns this is for the big league the d-57 5s weight size and power make it especially useful for large mining operations however these factors limit its use to I think this is probably the largest bulldoze event will see in quite some time to go to a larger machine would require a lot more cost and it just doesn't work out dollars and cents there are not so many operations of the size to use the cannot so Dean 575 this c'mon so super dozer is the ultimate machine if you want to push large loads of dirt in a short time for longer distances it's a waste of power for this reason the super dozer is buried at number 3 on our list we've already explored some of the greatest earth movers on the planet now use a giant hauler that is the cornerstone of many mining operations standing at number 2 the leap hairtie 282 B Paul truck the TIG - with its edges which is enormous tires where there's big red data it doesn't hide his power it is just pure much of mining kept saying they want it bigger they wanted better they want it faster the t28 e2b does it it's not just the size of a house it's the size of an office block and it's an office block that will do 40 miles an hour when it drives past you they're earth shape it's fantastic the t 282 B has an engine weighing a whopping 11 tons such a big engine is a real gas guzzler it burns 1,200 gallons of diesel a day it's not all about gas though it's unique because it's diesel electric drive unlike some other trucks which are mechanical drive an electric drive truck is simple in that it uses very few rotating parts as opposed to rotating drive lines and transmissions and various components like that moving this giant forward is one thing stopping it is another the t 282 B does have conventional brakes but holding its massive momentum would quickly burn them out so this monster relies on its electric motors to decrease speed they weren't like in a normal car we're changing gears from 3rd to 2nd slows it down keeping this million pound beast under control requires more than brakes it calls for a skilled and confident driver first time I ever sat in the driver's seat of one of those it was pretty intimidating but after about two weeks or so we get into the flow of driving them and you get used to the size of them and then you don't really notice how big they're compared to the rest of them when you're operating something that's large you get used to the fact that there's a lot of smaller pieces of equipment smaller vehicles around you I never thought I would be able to do it or never even consider trying it but it's fun no matter how many times you see it there's still a feeling that how can something as big as this be able to move around at 40 miles an hour it's the same kind of feeling you get when you see a 747 that weighs 250 tonnes actually taking off the feeling is the same they are designed to move material quickly so the fastest they can get between that shovel and that crusher the better and obviously the more they can carry so that's the whole point of doing a large fast ball truck it's more than just a dump truck it's almost like a a armored car in a way when you see that big pile in the back of a ultra drive off with it although the t28 e2b may be the biggest and best at what it does it still needs a loader to fill it up and does little to beautify the landscape for those reasons it stands at number two on our list coming up our number one the greatest ever earth mover so far it's been all about size and raw power and in this world of big bigger and biggest you may be surprised by the size of our last digger we've met nine earthmoving goliaths on our top 10 list of the greatest ever diggers you might call our number one david the incredibly small yet efficient JCB backhoe loader in many ways the JCB reminds me of a common and not the biggest not the most powerful but still one of nature's most merciful little excavators what's great about a backhoe loader is it's it's a jack-of-all-trades it's like a Swiss Army knife it's a popular machine and it has transformed the way we actually work in a whole range of us moving thing although it's not the largest machine by any means it is the most adaptable it can do more different jobs than any of the other machines we have on our list one out of every four backers is a JCB JCB has sold over three hundred and twenty five thousand machines around the world since they first hit building sites in 1952 the backhoe loader was born of the need for multiple functions from just one machine really a backhoe loader is versatility to the nth degree you've got three pieces of construction equipment tied into one first you have a tractor next you have a loader you're at the ability to lose if we move large amounts of material from point A to point B and then really the main operating tool the machine is gonna be the back end it's a small machine but it's a very powerful machine but the key to the backhoe loader is its versatility which a such JCB apart from the competitors as a host of unique applications you can put in upwards of 500 attachments onto the backhoe loader again making the operator more productive because it's gonna give him a more versatile machine I think certainly an engineering you've got to have the products right when you fortunately had the right sort of product to do that with and I get that Sir Anthony Bamford is the oldest son of Joseph Cyril Bamford the man whose initials JCB became the standard of quality for digging machines it's no good just having a well engineered product you've got to go out and sell it and he actually did go out and sell it I mean he sold his very first product himself in the marketplace Joe's selling skills were on display when he began a great tradition of JCB stunts in the 1960s he involved royalty at lavish presentations and even organized elaborate demonstrations performed to showcase the versatility of the machine it's all part of selling the sizzle really not selling mistake you've got to make it interesting liability is very very key for these items of equipment and the 3cx backhoe loader stands up to all the abuse that the kids can throw at it in England Huey Delano owns digger land the world's first Adventure Park entirely dedicated to construction equipment I just love diggers myself we do a lot of unusual things and fun things we've basically we have a the world's fastest JCB that's road-legal its top speed is a closely guarded secret suffice to say that you can overtake trucks on the on the highway without too much of a problem q took 22 hours to cross the entire British Isles and the record he holds is probably here to stay for him it's just another way to spend as much time as he can around the digger it's just ballsy to demonstrate the JCB's adaptability and efficiency we have pitted the backhoe against a rugby team a world-first we think the objective is simple dig a ditch three feet wide three feet deep and 23 feet long as fast as possible 15 strapping muscle-bound rugby players against the Swiss Army knife of the construction industry the JCB backhoe loader surely it's no competition keep it up lads come on both teams start quickly but with some death flicks and a few cleverly placed scoops the backhoe soon has the edge a three-foot deep trench proves to be a mere hindrance to a machine designed to dig as deep as 20 feet although in top physical shape the men are no match for the JCB the hydraulic power of the backhoe does the job in 14 minutes and 56 seconds leaving the rugby team trailing way behind well gentlemen I'm afraid modern technology has beaten the rugby team but nevertheless we JCB are honored to be considered number one on the top 10 greatest earth movers of all time I think the versatility of the machine has really allowed us to gain that stature when you look at other pieces of construction equipment that are out there I'd be willing to bet our machines have probably moved more earth than the other other machines on your list the backorder is never the most efficient machine at doing any particular job it's real success is that it'll do just about anything and no other machine comes close in that in that respect every site needs a JCB because there's always a small job to do it can do 101 jobs it's not necessarily the biggest the baddest and the most powerful they'll come out on top sometimes it's the smallest and more versatile tool that comes in number one although not a giant the impressive versatility of the JCB makes it one of the greatest ever earth movers there you have it every digger on our top 10 list can really move earth yet these machines also take a toll on Mother Nature they've enabled mining operations to literally level mountains however without these brutes and the fuel and minerals they dig up life wouldn't be what it is today

Channel: zbiczasty

Views: 1,276,442

Rating: 4.4832234 out of 5

Keywords: earthmovers, RH400, D575, Silver Spade, Liebherr, T828B, Letourneau, L2350, Bagger 293, TBM, CAT 657, Liberty Dragline, JCB

Id: RX1JdnGHUAk

Length: 44min 32sec (2672 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 19 2012