Just read about the biggest crawler crane ever built and the numbers are wild

I was looking up some old equipment specs online and came across the Liebherr LR 13000. This thing is a monster. It can lift 3,000 tons, which is like 30 fully loaded semi trucks. The boom can go up to 420 feet, and it needs over 5,000 feet of main hoist rope. I was trying to picture setting that up on a site and my brain just stopped. The counterweight alone is 4,900 tons, so you're basically building a small mountain just to balance it. It's one of those machines you only see on the biggest jobs, like power plants or shipyards. Makes you think about the planning that goes into just moving the parts to the site, let alone running it. Has anyone here ever worked on a project with a crane that big, or even seen one in person?

3 comments

3 Comments

xena6422mo ago

Wow, just picturing the logistics for that makes my head hurt (like, where do you even store 5,000 feet of rope?).

oscarwright19d ago

Ever tried storing 500 feet of air hose in a small garage? I did that once for a side gig and it was a nightmare. Ended up coiling it on a huge wooden spool from an old electrical cable company, then hung it from the ceiling on heavy duty hooks. That saved floor space, but it still took two people just to lift it down. For 5,000 feet, you'd basically need a dedicated storage room with a roller system or something custom built.

palmer.thomas2mo ago

Yeah, the 5,000 feet of rope thing got me too... that's not a spool, that's a whole warehouse aisle just for one part. You'd need a separate crane just to lift the rope onto the first crane. The whole setup probably takes longer than some of the actual jobs it does.