- [Narrator] Mankind has built huge structures
for the sea, land, and for the air.
For every massive object, you need another one
to transport it.
And some of these constructions are the most
awe-inspiring of all.
- [Title Voice] Amazing!
- [Narrator] Number Ten.
Slag Pot Transporter
Kamag's Slag Pot Transporter may not sound like
the most glamorous vehicle on the list.
But, it packs tons of its own tech
and toughness into its iron hide.
The unique challenge Kamag faced when designing
the titanic transporter was enabling it
to carry super-hot 1300 degree centigrade molten slag
from the smelting process safely and efficiently
from the incinerators to coolers.
Special vehicle manufacturer Kamag rose to the task
of constructing a new leading vehicle in this field.
And the 82-ton transporter they created measures
11.9 meters long by 7.7 meters wide
and 4.3 meters high.
With a capacity of no less than 130 tons,
it can carry a good portion more than its own weight.
Maneuvering a truck like this is a highly responsible
and complex task.
And therefore, the Kamag truck is packed full of
technical innovations, in that it has
a state of the art, automatic, smooth and reliable gearbox,
digital monitoring systems,
and highly flexible steering systems.
Number nine.
Shuttle Carrier Aircraft transported through LA.
Space shuttle Endeavor's final journey was, perhaps,
insignificant compared to its missions
to the International Space Station.
In its awesome history, it completed 25 missions
with a total of 299 days spent orbiting Earth
a total of 4,671 times.
Even so, it's last voyage, dubbed mission 26,
presented an insane logistical challenge in its own right.
Endeavor was retired to the California Science Center
where it's become the museum's center piece
set to inspire new generations of astronauts and explorers.
Its final journey began on the back of the Boeing 747,
a famous sight in itself.
And the aircraft's pilots Jeff Moultrie
and Bill Reich flew the shuttle over California's
landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco, and NASA's Ames Research Center
at Moffett Field.
After landing at Los Angeles, the spacecraft's journey
to the museum took three days to complete
for a distance of just 14 kilometers.
The shuttle, its fuel tank and other parts,
weighed in at 144 tons.
And it took a 160-wheeled carrying device
to transport it through LA streets.
Trees, lamp posts and many other obstacles had
to be removed as the shuttle was tentatively
driven to its final resting place surrounded
by a vast entourage of spectators.
Number eight.
Huge Boulder.
Many weird and wonderful tasks
have been carried out in the name of art.
But moving a 340-ton boulder wasn't at the top
of anyone's list until Michael Heizer
designed Levitated Mass, where visitors could walk
through a large, concrete trough
under a huge suspended boulder.
The boulder, located in Riverside County, California,
was transported to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
almost 100 miles away.
It was loaded onto a 176-wheeled transporter
which then navigated the huge distance at night
whilst roads were temporarily closed.
Number 7.
Transporting The World's Biggest Turbine.
If you've ever looked at a jumbo jet's turbine
and marveled at its size,
then Harriet trumps it in every way, shape and form.
It's the world's largest and most efficient gas turbine,
and converts gas to electricity with
an astounding efficiency rate of 61% when combined
with a steam turbine.
It achieves its amazing efficiency through technology
originally developed for jet engines.
Harriet weighs in at 400 tons, a world champion
that people in France turned out to see roadside
much akin to their Tour de France.
But this world champion only reached
a top speed of 10 miles per hour.
It was transported from Belfort to Bouchain
over 330 miles away.
And such a complex, vastly expensive
and tremendously important construction
had to be transported to absolute perfection.
The convoy was 109 meters in length,
6.6 meters wide, and 6 meters high,
weighing in at 800 tons in total.
The turbine was carried on 14 rows
of triple-tired axles and every element
of its construction was scrutinized
over the three years it took to plan the journey.
So fine was the planning
that computer models were generated
to assess bridges and bypasses
as well as nuances in the road's camber,
its elevation, and its surface quality.
Local councils were even instructed
to improve many roads to prepare for it.
From Strasbourg, the turbine was taken down rivers
until it reached the energy plant for installation.
And once it was running, it created 600 megawatts
of power to power 700,000 french homes.
Number 6.
1,048 Tonne Reactor
One name which will be cropping up when
discussing super-heavy haulage
and transportation is Mammoet,
who are the world's super-heavy transport elites.
They've been taking on board all manner
of near-impossible haulage task.
And one such mega challenge was shifting
Samsung's Saudi Arabia's 1,048-ton reactor
from its factory in Dammam
to a petrochemical plant in Shaybah.
The journey is 1,080 miles,
a huge distance in itself.
But the real brutality of this task
lies in the terrain that Mammoet had
to navigate to achieve their goal.
The Rub' al Khali desert is the largest
continuous sand desert in the world.
And in summer, the temperature can
swing between 50 degrees centigrade
to zero, sub-zero.
Not to mention frequent, vicious sandstorms.
Mammoet's huge convoy set off
with a crew nearing the hundreds.
Ten trucks and a huge, hydraulic trailer system
which would carry the reactor itself.
They navigated roads which were
barely seven meters wide,
had to remove many low power lines
and coordinate the vast convoy
over the crest of sand dunes
which had slopes of up to eight percent.
To top it all off, 500 kilomters
of the journey was completed void
of human settlement meaning
the entire convoy had to be self sufficient
on water, food and other provisions.
Number five.
Hotel.
Moving buildings has never been
an easy proposition.
How do you uproot the foundations
and carry a building intact?
It seems like an impossible task for anything.
But San Antonio made history in the 80s
when they moved the Fairmount Hotel
half a mile downtown to a new location,
even crossing a bridge in the process.
The hotel, once built as a luxury-boutique hotel
for railroad passengers was ordered
to be conserved rather than demolished
and relocation seemed like the best way
to preserve the hotel's historical value.
The hotel, which weighed 1,360 tons
was gutted, beamed together
and locked into one large shell
before the structure was heaved
by a cable and pulley system with
hydraulic lifts, cranes and trucks.
It took six days, a world-record-breaking feat
which was big news in over 30 countries.
Number 4.
NASA Crawler Transporter.
NASA's crawler transporter is an awe-inspiring form
with its huge, lumbering, caterpillar tracks.
When it's loaded with a shuttle
it looks even more imposing.
And the staggering weight these have carried
extends all the way up to 5,500 tons
for the mighty Saturn V rocket.
The transporter itself has a weight of 2,721 tons.
The crawler, as of 2003, is powered
by 16 traction motors which are
powered by four 1,000 kW generators
in turn, driven by two
2,750 hp V-16 diesel engines.
Its fuel tanks hold 19,000 liters of diesel
and it burns an outrageous 296 liters per kilometer.
At a speed of 1.6 kilometers per hour,
these take three hours to get from the hangars
to the launch complexes and since 1965,
they've traveled a total of 5,500 kilometers
which is enough to get from Miami to Seattle.
Number three.
Largest Land Vehicle Ever, Bagger 293.
The Bagger 293 is a ridiculously large vehicle.
It really makes you double take
because it's just so damn large.
In fact, it weighs no less than 14,000 tons,
requiring a staggering 16.56 megawatts
to power from a huge external power source.
This behemoth has a top speed
of one third of a mile per hour.
The Bagger destroyed NASA's crawler's record
for the biggest land vehicle
and currently holds the Guinness world record.
So, why was there a need to build such a might machine?
The Bagger wasn't initially intended
to be a mobile machine.
It was instead made mobile as
it was considered cheaper than
deconstructing the machine
to just reconstruct it at another mining site.
Its construction cost $100 million
and took five years to design and manufacture.
And then five years to assemble.
The amazing stats don't end there.
It requires a crew of five
and it can move 240,000 cubic meters.
That's 218,880 tons of soil per day
amounting to 2,500 full truckloads
or the equivalent of an entire
full-size football field dug
to a hundred feet deep each day.
Number 2.
Goliat Oil Rig Platform.
So far, we've looked at land transportation.
But this example looks at sea transportation.
And though it's obvious that far more can be pulled at sea,
64,000 tons is still a mean feat.
In fact, this is an entire oil rig platform
which was transported 15,600 nautical miles
from South Korea to the remote Norwegian city Hammerfest.
The platform was transported over 63 days
on one of the largest vehicles ever built,
A semi-submersible ship named the Dockwise Vanguard,
able to carry up to 117,000 tons.
That's eight Bagger 293's
which are the world's largest land vehicles.
The Dockwise Vanguard is a behemoth
with a length of 275 meters.
It cost a staggering 250 million dollars to build.
And it's the largest, heavy-lift ship ever built.
The Goliat platform itself is a feat of modern engineering,
designed to withstand the Bering Sea's icy storms
and extreme weathering
while keeping its operators perfectly safe.
The complete oil field will yield
up to 100,000 oil barrels every single day.
Number one.
Cargo Ships.
The battle of the seas biggest ship
is a real clash of the titans.
There are so many absolutely huge vessels out there
and many really are hard to get your head around.
Perhaps none more than the OOCL Germany
and the CSCL Globe which both nearly measure
a breathtaking 400 meters
and weigh in at almost 200,000 tons.
They can both carry over 200,000 tons of cargo
or over 20,000 20-foot shipping units.
However, there is one ship that beats these
by a shocking 88 meters.
The Prelude FLNG, a liquified, natural gas platform
which currently holds the record
for the biggest offshore construction ever.
It's almost twice as long as the Titanic
and two and a half times wider,
dwarfing just about every other construction
on earth besides the largest skyscrapers.
Even then, it's still taller than the Empire State Building,
the Shanghai World Financial Center
and the Petronas Towers.
With a gross tonnage of 310,000 tons
and a construction cost of 10 billion dollars or more,
it's going to take something truly out of this world
to beat this absolute monster of a vehicle.
The huge feats we've accomplished
are a testament to our iron will as humans.
Which one amazed you the most?
Do you know of any more?
Let me know in the comment section down below.
Thanks for watching.
