"KEYENBERG, Germany — The first thing Norbert Winzen wants me to know about the machine is that it never stops moving.

"It runs constantly," he says. "Every day, every night, Sundays, even on Christmas."

Incessant and haunting high-pitched creaks echo along the hills of the countryside surrounding Winzen's farm. They're from a bucket-wheel excavator, a machine that's taller than the Statue of Liberty, longer than Madison Square Garden and heavier than the Eiffel Tower. It holds aloft a wheel 70 feet in diameter with 18 massive buckets along its edges, each of them capable of digging 6.5 tons of soil.

It is one of the largest machines on the planet, and it's used to dig open-pit mines. Its technical name is the Bagger 288. But as a little boy on his family farm, Winzen knew it by a different name."

Rob Schmitz reports for NPR June 28, 2021. [2]