Underground special

by Nick Drew | Mon 05 Feb 2018

Underground special

A recent post on our Digger Man Blog Facebook group inspired me to look at some special application excavators and over the coming weeks I will be taking a look at more of these, in this post it’s the Liebherr R 950 tunnel excavator.

Liebherr have a bit of a penchant for designing and manufacturing bespoke kit and the R 950 Tunnel excavator is one of these machines. Built by Liebherr-France at its massive Colmar facility the machine has an operating weight of around 45 tonnes and is powered by a Liebherr designed Stage IV/ Tier 4 Final emissions compliant diesel engine which offers two power output options depending on the customers specification. The ratings are 150kw (204hp) or 190kw (258hp).

Its compact design enables the machine to work in tunnel heights as low as 5 metres, in addition a short slew radius helps to prevent any damage to the tunnel walls as the machine progresses in the dig.

The R 950 replaced the R 944 C Tunnel excavator, but the company has produced smaller examples previously like this R 924 Compact model I spotted at Intermat in 2015.

Lets take a look at this video from Liebherr which shows the R 950 Tunnel excavator being assembled in the Colmar plant and heading off to its first tunnelling project in Stuttgart, Germany.

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