Favourite picture: A tree is moving house

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Living load.

Two self-propelled heavy-duty modules are used to relocate an oak tree in the US state of Louisiana.


After almost 150 years in one place, "Big Al" needs to make space. Close to the town of New Iberia in the US state of Louisiana, workers hauled the 400-tonne, 20-metre-high oak tree onto two self-propelled heavy-duty modules. The enormous tree was in the way of new road construction. Using remote control, Big Al was transported the two kilometres to his new home at a snail's pace on the two Goldhofer AG transporters from Memmingen in Bavaria. Prior to this, it had already taken several hours to free and crate up the root bales, with a diameter of almost 13 metres.

Several TV channels showed live coverage of the possibly record-breaking transport in 2011. It very nearly went horribly wrong: the authorities wanted to simply cut the old tree down. A resident protested against this – and succeeded.

Photo: Goldhofer AG


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