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Bagger 288!

Bagger 288!

Rathergood
0 HN recommenders · discussed 2021–2025
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About this video

A short, absurd happy-hardcore song and animation celebrating the Bagger 288, the enormous bucket-wheel excavator, in dramatic over-the-top terms.

Why it appears in the archive

HN mostly drops it as a joke whenever giant machines or huge ships and excavators come up.

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From the Hacker News discussion

fragmede · 2025-10 · reference

You should see this one! [VIDEO] It's a bit dated (completed in 1978) and cost approximately $100 million. At one point it was the heaviest land vehicle, clocking in at 13,500 tons. It's since been succeded, but this bucket-wheel excavator needed only five people to operate. Those five people could mine 240,000 tons of coal[8] or 240,000 cubic metres of overburden (rock/soil on top of the coal) per day . That's 2400 coal wagons! After totally tapping out all of the coal at the Tagebau Hambach mine, in 2001, it took a crew of 70 together to move it 14 miles to the next mine. This move cost 15 million German Marks. (Just watch the linked documentary.)

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Defenestresque · 2021-01 · joke

The leaders of the free world sat around a secret table... [VIDEO] (I know this comment is not exactly in the mood of HN, but this is the one thing I never fail to think of when someone mentions the Bagger family of murderous machines!)

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Arrath · 2021-03 · joke

Just bring in a Bagger 288[1] and use it to excavate a new diversion canal in front of the ship long enough to get it out of the main canal, bada-bing bada-boom. Simple! [1]Obligatory: [VIDEO]

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dan-robertson · 2021-11 · joke

I’ve heard ideas[1] about supersized machines and they terrify me. Thankfully it is probably NP-hard in size to make a thing so we’re probably fine. [1] [VIDEO]

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