Technological Marvel No.3: Otto and Wilhelm
Otto and Wilhelm and are two giant steam powered bucket-wheel excavators that are mining the tar coal depots in the Rhineland.
Both are more than 1,000 ft long and weight more than 20.000 metric tons. They move on large tracks, and their bucket wheels are more than 25 metres in diameter. They move slowly, usually less than a kilometre per day, but they are unstoppable. Whatever they encounter, they simply grind it up and tear it down. Many villages and some small towns fell victim to them, their inhabitants became refugees in their own land. Some of them tried to stop the Behemoths by force or in court, but in both cases the owners, the Royal Prussian Tar Coal Society (Otto) and the Allied Tar Coal Mines (Wilhelm), were to powerful.
Cloaked in dense smoke and poisonous stench of hydrogen sulfide gas, these machines are truly the hell on wheels. And they are followed by hundreds of damned souls who try to make a living, be it by scraping through the overburden or stealing some of the tar corals from the excavators.
It looks like Otto and Wilhelm will meet in the next few months - both companies claiming the same "claim" west of Cologne. Neither will back down, and it could be possible that Otto and Wilhelm will meet in a titanic struggle there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket-wheel_excavator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288