Bucket-Wheel Excavator “Blue Wonder”, Germany

This abandoned Bucket-Wheel Excavator lies rusting in a field in East Germany. The monstrous machine is called a “schaufelradbagger” in German. In fact this specific machine is thought to be the largest abandoned machine in the world. By looking carefully in the less rusty areas, you can still see the blue paint. This azure paint together with the impressive size gave rise to the nickname “Blue Wonder”.

We visited the bucket-wheel excavator during the Germany Summer 2020 – The GDR Ballroom Tour.

History of this monstrous engineering marvel

Following the Second World War, this region supplied most of the coal for the newly founded German Democratic Republic (GDR). There is abundant brown coal, called lignite, in this region. The expansive shallow coal deposits can be easily mined using open cast mining. Correspondingly, the coal mining industry was a major employer in this region for half a decade.

The “Blue Wonder” was built in central Germany in the mid-1960s, and for fifty years it tirelessly ripped through the countryside in search of coal. The machine has 10 buckets, each able to hold 1.5m_³ of earth and rock (approx. 10 bath tubs). The bucket-wheel excavator would chew through 3.7m of rock per second, as it relentlessly moved forward. This machines job was to remove the overburden; the layers of earth and rock above the coal. When most of the overburden was cleared, other types of excavator would handle the extraction of the coal.

Blue Wonder was rendered obsolete, when the coal mine closed in the mid 2000s. Subsequently, it was not economically viable to dismantle the machine. Instead, the machine drove one final journey. After an 8km funeral march, it parked in a large empty field, and was left as a memorial to the former open cast coal mine. Over the years the once wonderful blue paint has faded, and ben replaces by orange-brown rust. Eventually, this magnificent relic of Germany’s engineering ingenuity will now slowly melt into the landscape. The ground it once decimated with its fierce bucker will eventually reclaim its ceased body. Ultimately this seems a fitting end, in a way. Certainly, a poetic one.

Specifications of the Bucket-Wheel Excavator “Blue Wonder”

• Years of operation: mid-1960s to early 2000s
• Crew: 4
• Gross weight: approx 3850t
• Length: 170m
• Height (tallest point) : 50m
• Number of buckets: 10
• Capacity per bucket: 1.5m3
• Bucket dumps per minute: 57
• Cutting speed: 3.7m per second
• Length of wheel arm: 65m
• Max cutting depth: 15m
• Max cutting height: 35m
• Bucket-wheel diameter: 12.5m
• Max speed : 6 m per minute