More O&K's from the archives

by Nick Drew | Wed 18 Jun 2014

More O&K's from the archives

In response to readers requests for more O&K material, here is another look back at an old blog I did on the classic red & white German machines.

O&K’s history goes back to 1876, when Benno Orenstien and Arthur Koppel established the company to manufacture narrow gauge railway tracks, wagons and locomotives in Berlin. The company was dissolved in 1885, but over time the two separate businesses were re-established as one. Following some major takeovers of smaller companies in 1911, the company expanded rapidly under the elongated name of Orenstein and Koppel and Lubecker Maschinenbau AG, until in 1970 the company became O&K AG. The company produced its first steam shovel in 1908 and went on to produce many different models of rope controlled excavators. It wasn’t until 1961 that O&K’s first hydraulic excavator, the RH5 made its appearance, and one of these early models is still displayed at the Dortmund factory, where O&K’s legacy continues to this day, all be it under a different name.

The famous RH5 continued in production until 1966 and was replaced with the RH4 model in the same year. In 1967 five new models were introduced, including the RH15, which is seen here in face shovel version loading a dumptruck.

The RH15 was later joined in the range by the RH25, and in this shot from my collection we can see a fine face shovel example loading a Faun rigid dumptruck on an autobahn job in Germany.

O&K were keen to get into the heavy mining sector and indeed in the company’s later years, it was the large kit that they became more famous for. Their first large entry into the mining market was in 1971, just ten years after O&K had launched their first hydraulic excavator, when they launched the 124 ton RH60, which had a face shovel bucket capacity of 8.5 cubic yards. I was 10 years old when this machine was launched, and I can vividly remember having a promotional poster of it on my bedroom wall! Of course at the time this was classed as a massive hydraulic excavator, powered by two Deuzt diesel engines, giving the machine a total power output of 760hp. This model remained in production until 1976 when it was superseded by the RH75. The example in this photo is not sporting the familiar O&K red and white colours, but was supplied in the customer’s colours, which is a very popular thing to do in central Europe to this day.

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