Ferropolis: The Museum Of Massive Mining Machines 

I love the Bagger 288 piano version in the background. These easter eggs really make your channel so unique.

You know what is the best part of your content, Tim? It isn’t the interesting diversity of amazing places you keep visiting. It isn’t your soothing voice and kind demeanor. It is the piano-covers of niche and old cartoons you keep hiding within the soundtrack of your videos. Did you think you could put the theme of Noah’s Island into the video without me noticing?

One slight correction: they don't just have the 5 big diggers, they also have some of the smaller machines used in the mine, like huge dozers, rail shifting machines, and even a mobile crane built out of a repurposed T34. Definitely worth seeing

2:09 I don't know whether this was intended as a subtle reference (and if so, bravo), but the phrase "Making a mountain of of a molehill" in German would be written as "Making an elephant out of a mosquito".

Can we take a moment to appreciate the excellent editing.

Queensland here. I thought walking draglines were really big, but these machines are truly the queens of drag.

I really like the use of "bagger 288" in the beginning.

Never clicked a video so fast! Finally a place not far from my hometown :D Feropolis is indeed a impressiv site. I need to go there again... Tim you need to visit the F-60 now! Not far, about 60km to the east from Feropolis in southern Brandenburg, you can visit a structure called F60. Basicly a selfdriving 500m long and 79m high conveyer bridge, once used In mining! (It is called the "lying down eifeltower" for a reason) You can explore the whole structure by a guided tour :)

What better way to celebrate your engagement than to go and look at big diggers with a strange English man and leave the fiancé at home. 😂

Actual, Genuine LOL's at the opening tune... Bagger 288!

Interestingly, there was also a railroad museum nearby Ferropolis, where they showed rail vehicles that where used to transport all the coal out of the mine. Sadly, it had long be closed since 2007.

I performed at the Full Force festival on those grounds in 2019. I spent more time looking at the machines and reading about them than I did watching the other bands at the festival. These machines are marvels of engineering.

Surely there is a German compound word for "Museum of Monster Mining Machines"

Right in the center of the USA, in a tiny town called West Mineral, Kansas stands Big Brutus. It's a long retired dragline shovel the size of an office building. They have a few other large excavators as well with the bonus that you can go inside and explore. Yep, even in Big Brutus himself - you climb up inside and you can give yourself a tour, sit in the operators seat - and back in the day you used to be able to climb out the boom (now closed for an obvious reason). There isn't a good way to get to it if you're not already in the area, but if you are take the drive. Every person that's grown up within 100 miles of Big Brutus has been there for at least one school trip.

As a German I feel obligated to say: "That's not a Bagger, *this* is a Bagger!"

You mean to tell me the biggest moving machines on the planet... are plugged into the wall like a bog standard electric lawn mower!!! Madness

It's the famous square-cube law. While the surface of an object grows by square, its volume (and usually its weight) grows by cube.

Congratulations, Niamh! Tim, I really “dig” your content and try to “spread” it around to my friends.

Musical selections this week were definitely rather good.

If you are interested, in Czechia, there is a museum on a bucket-wheel excavator measuring 52 meters tall, weighing around 4000 tonnes. So still not Bagger 293 territory , but almost twice the size of the one from the video.

This reminds me of the old German saying: „Wer andern eine Grube gräbt, der braucht ein Grubengrabgerät!“

The Mosquito has its name from the excavation rail looking like the proboscis of an insect - then again, it also looks like an elephant trunk so I can subscribe to your naming there. As for VEB: That stands for Volkseigener Betrieb, meaning a people owned company/corporation, which is a partial joke in itself, as private possession was "somewhat" regulated in the DDR. And obviously, knowing how the DDR worked, "Volkseigen" meant "owned by the only truly permitted party". I visited the place in 2017, and back then, there were no elevators, so props for the upgrade, Ferropolis. On a slight note, the Mad Max/Sad Dragon would drop whatever load it got fed on two adjacent trains below the main construction, being operated directly from above by hand, imagine that noise. Having added that pedantly, as always a great documentation, and a must visit when in the vicinity.

It's bizarre how they're these massive vehicles, all this machinery involved in working and moving, and then on top of all that, there's just like a normal office building for the crew. Because it's not like it has to be aerodynamic, and all the mechanical stuff is kept separate from where the crew has to hang out, so it can just be a normal building kinda thing.

Calling the large machine a chonker was my favourite part :D

Ahhh yes... Ferropolis and Drift Master European Championship. A match made in heaven. The venue is absolutely crazy when those pro spec cars bang and pop around it.

Very interesting! There is actually another similar park just south of Leipzig. They only have two Baggers, but theirs are even bigger (weight wise)

Congratulations, Niamh & Julian!

Of all the niche musical references, playing the Bagger 288 song from Rathergood has to be one of the nichest. Haven't thought about that tune in years. Bravo.

They mined brown coal (Lignite), didn't they?

I met Niamh the other month! I was totally starstruck. Congratulations to her on the engagement!

The running gag of the QI music on pedantry corner is just so perfect. :D

Living in Berlin, I have been to a music festival this summer there. It was REALLY impressive, and REALLY well decorated. They do a couple of different festivals each summer there. We did not camp there though, we slept in the fancy resort hotel in Gröbern (10 minute taxi ride). Can recommend!

I grew up in the (rather obscure, even to natives) Bone Valley of Florida, where a lot of open pit phosphate strip mining takes place. Always loved seeing the huge drag lines do their work. The Germans make our massive machines look puny in comparison.

I can just imagine in a post Apocolypse movie like Mad Max that one of these would be the villians main base, driving around crushing stuff under its tracks

Actually you can get close to the, even bigger, machines still in service. There are multiple tours you can book and they take you right into the mine pit next to the big machines. You can even leave the "bus" (really a converted lorry) and experience the machines up close. I once went to a mine just 120 km east of Gräfenhainichen, but I'm pretty sure there are also some tours offered in the mines east of Aachen, which would be much closer to France. Those west German mines have the bigger baggers, but the east German mines have the biggest movable land objects on earth. Those are the enormous movable conveyer bridges. It has to do with the coal mines in the west being bigger and to big for conveyor bridges. The Absetzer don't dispose dirt after sorting. There are actually two kinds of baggers. The biggest do dig up the dirt layer on top of the coal. That dirt is disposed by the Absetzer into the already dug up part of the pit. A second bunch of baggers dig up the actual coal layer and dump it to conveyors that transport it to mine trains or directly to the power plants. It's really interesting to so the whole thing in action, I really recommend taking a tour.

See also the Bergbau-Technik-Park south of Leipzig!

Looking at a map i realized this is SUPER close to Wölirtz. Hope you took the oportunity to go there while you were there cause they have some amazing historical stuff in their big park. :)

the beginning actually made me cry 😥 great vid

Tim is showing us cool stuff, and Tim is showing us cool places. Tim is talking about history and FCKIN trains. Tim has interesting and well-edited videos. Let's be like Tim, and THANK YOU, Tim. I Love your videos. 😊😊

DIGGY DIGGY HOLE Brothers of the mine rejoice! (Swing, swing, swing with me!) Raise your pick and raise your voice! (Sing, sing, sing with me!) Down and down into the deep Who knows what we'll find beneath? Diamonds, rubies, gold, and more Hidden in the mountains store

Congratulations Niamh!

Tim the bagger288 music subtly playing was perfection 🤣

It's not just an event venue for electronic festivals, but also for metal festivals. I've visited the Full Force Festival there twice. At night when the machines are lit up the view is absolutely breathtaking.

Hope they have also audiovisual exhibition of how these moved around. Bet that some proper sound and earth shaking would double or triple the impressiveness.

That subtle song in the background *chefs kiss*. Forever in your debt Bagger 288

I enjoyed my visit at Ferropolis. Very impressive. Also south of Berlin is the insanely large Förderbrücke F60 in Lichterfeld. Worth a visit.

Germany is so great at re-purposing aging industry. Old mine with some massive excavators: concert hall and drift track, and let the curious people get right up to them. In America the whole area would get fenced and you would be arrested for getting close because it’s “dangerous”

The rendition of the Bagger 288 song in the background was a fantastic touch.

It's probably just as well Colin "add lightness" Chapman is no longer with us because that Lotus would surely have caused havoc with his blood pressure. Great video as always Tim. Thanks to you both and congratulations to Niamh.

Congratulations TTT Berlin Correspondent Niamh!

I am glad you are aware of the Bagger 288 song.

Armored Core players be like: Yeah that seems like a reasonably sized digging equipment

Great as always. That cable you were looking at with the Earth, Wind and Fire is called a Powerlight cable and is used to connect to the Electric Universe.

Reminded of "Big Geordie", a machine so big it didn't have wheels but it "walked".

The entire Leipzig region is full of mostly defunct pit mines that have been converted into lakes over the past decades (it's a bit slower of a process than filling a bathtub), fantastic places for recreation by the way, and in tourist advertising they call it Leipziger Neuseenland as a play on the word Neuseeland which is German for New Zealand, but it literally translates to "new lakes land". Also Tim, your foreign pronounciations are incredibly good, practically spot on almost every time, even the stupid Umlaute.

I shall have to add this to my bucket list.

Love the small wink to the Bagger 288 - Metal music at the end.

congratulations to Niamh and Julian!!

As always a great video and wonderful break for my day. Congratulations Naimh.

There were a few opportunities to see a few of these open pit excavators up close. One shows the documentary “Ein Riese zieht um” (1983) which can be found on RU-vid. German audio and probably no subtitles. I think there are one or two similar documentaries from later years that were shown on German television at some point, but I don't know the titles and don't know if they can even be found on RU-vid. I remember a film where two or three excavators or similar equipment traveled together, I guess it was sometime in the 1990s.

There is another one in Brandenburg near the A13 (Berlin-Dresden), "Besucherbergwerk F60" where you can climb the Bagger and walk on it - if you don't fear heights.

This was so fun! I loved the back and forth you had with Niamh.

Tom Scott: "I'll make a video about a bus that looks like something out of Thunderbirds". Tim: "Hold my beer"...

Congrats on the engagement Niamh!

I love how Tim clears everything up before people start asking questions, even about who his guest is 😂😂😂

"They decided to leave the old excavators as a reminder of industrial heritage and event backdrop". Also, dismantling them would, ahemm, take some effort! Very COAL machines! 👍🙂

I visited the Hambach mine this summer and saw the 293 in the distance and it still looked absolutely massive. It's such a shame you can't book a tour to see it up close.

I got to take a 'ride' in a similar machine (bucket-wheel excavator) in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia in the early 90s. It was quite weird being up in the operator's cabin, the equivalent of being up in a 7 story building, as it began to move. Also weird was walking up the stairs to get to the cab, and later going up the same stairs to get out. Yes, it was digging up at ground level when I entered, but when leaving, the bucketwheel and cab were working the base of the cut. The stairs move up and down to bridge between the moving cab and the fixed part of the machine.

These playground excavators are fantastic! Let just say there have been visits to playgrounds with my daughter which had one of these. And of course I had to personally check them before I let my kid use it 🙂

Is there any part of Germany's industrial heritage that isn't used for raves? It seems like that's the main industry in Germany now days.

I can't tell you how big a grin I had when that tune started in the intro😄

Today Tim takes a trip to see the Wretched Machinery from NieR: Automata

There used to be a massive (in UK scale) open pit coal mine a few miles from where I grew up, and as the mine was at the top of the valley, the digger was massive and terrifying sight on the horizon. Local legend has it, that in order to dispose of the machine when the mine was exhausted, they simply drove it into the hole and buried it. The mine has mostly been erased from the landscape now (apart from the OS map showing that it is several square miles of completely level ground in an otherwise undulating landscape) and now has a massive wind farm on top. So, we’ll never know.

From the Popular Mechanics archive I found a early bucket wheel excavator circa 1930 in Dallas. We were moving a river that was inconvenient.

Congrats to your friends on their engagement, and thanks for adding YET ANOTHER place in Germany to this American Horsepower Addict's bucket list.

It's amazing how Tim was able to get that footage and get out of there without being de-meated.

hell yes for the bagger 288 song background~

brilliant as usual - thank you for showing us around

Thanks for reminding me how great the Bagger 288 song is. Love your videos.

Naimha’s voice is so calming

This is the content I come to youtube for. 10/10 another excellent video Tim!

I'm pretty sure I've fought most of those bosses, the second stage is where they really get me

the bagger 288 music at the start *chefs kiss*

“The earth, wind and the fire” 😂😂

The Bagger 288 music was the icing on the easter egg!

Excellent really enjoyed watching this. I love looking at old machines.

Nice one Tim, love a bit of industrial machinery. Congrats on the engagement 🙂

I always like Tim's choice of background music.

Yeah that's the "Earth, Wind and Fire" hahaha Brilliant!

Hi Tim! I recently knew about a small Spanish football team called Mensajeros whose football field is ON THE ROOF OF A MALL! I thought this was one of those rare cases you might be interested in... maybe we'll have Tim Traveller in Spain for the 2nd time? :)

Love the Bagger 288 theme music at the start end end of the video.

Nice video from my home region, great to see that you've been there! But to go on with a bit of pedantry: The map shown at 2:40 does depict the GDR of the early days with the states (Länder) still intact, but they where actually suspended in 1952 already and substituted by 14 districts (Bezirke). Also, the Saarland became part of Western German in 1957 and Baden-Württemberg was formed in 1952 as well.

Brilliant. . I am always amazed how you find out about these interesting items. . Thank you for your video 👍👍

Finally, the intersection of two of my hobbies... drifting and random pedantry! I recognised Ferropolis in the thumbnail straight away from watching Drift Masters. You can even see the track in most of the shots, complete with rubber from the latest events. Some time I'd love to go and see it all in person!

Great video Tim

Clearly the Germans have a thing for giant machines. Herrenknecht AG makes the giant tunnel boring machines you see in such projects as Crossrail in London and the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel in Norfolk, VA, among many others. The one in Norfolk weighs 19.8 MILLION pounds. Great video Tim, as always!

Lovely rendition of Bagger 288 at the beginning!

Excellent, definitely on my bucket list.

just imagine all the working that it took to design and build those massive machines !Love that great lake and very cool museum !

I love this, great job by both. If peopl still want more, or if they don't feel up to a one hour walk, there is a smaller park with two - admittedly smaller - mining machines on the outskirts of Leipzig, the Bergbau-Technik-Park Leipzig.