Monster “Bagger” Park

Our friend and mega keen machinery operator and enthusiast over at the French Technique TP forum Jimmy Pourcelot, recently made a visit to the Monster Park machinery attraction in Rattelsdorf in Germany, which has inspired me to create this blog post.

The Monster Park can only be described as being like the UK’s Diggerland attractions, but on steroids! This place is a must-see facility for anyone with an interest in big earthmoving equipment especially from a historical perspective, but of course it caters for all sorts of visitors and especially young children, who as we all know, are often left spellbound from watching diggers in action.

The Monster “Bagger” Park is basically divided into 3 sections with various activities going on from mini excavator driving to go carts and rough terrain buggies and the motto is “pay once – have fun all day!”.

Photo: Courtesy of Jimmy Pourcelot.

Perhaps of most interest to me is the vast collection of historical heavy equipment much of which comes from long gone famous German brands such as Demag, Hanomag, Kaeble. O&K and Menck to name a few. Apparently, there are around 150 items in the collection. With these machines being outside 24/7 its probably fair to say some of them are looking a bit weather beaten and showing some faded paintwork, but its great that these classics are surviving for future generations to see.

Photo: The Menck 50 tonne face shovel : Courtesy of Jimmy Pourcelot. 

The oldest excavator on site is a 50-tonne class Menck rope controlled face shovel, which was built in 1927. While the largest excavator on the site is a Demag H185 which is close to the 200-tonne mark.

Photo: Courtesy of Jimmy Pourcelot.

This is a place that is definitely on my to do list, when and if the world ever gets back to normality, in the meantime checkout this video about the park, surprisingly one of the very few I could find on You Tube.