Breaking Up The Biggest

BREAKING UP THE BIGGEST

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Hard hats on and wrecking balls at the ready for the smashing series of Breaking Up the Biggest, Wednesdays at 9pm. These new episodes bring you some of the most dramatic demolition jobs in history. From fighter jets to diesel trains, no job is too big for these salvage experts - backed up by an awesome array of concrete-crunching, steel-snapping, iron-mangling machinery.

Maximum security
It may have been built with tight security in mind, but with redevelopment planned for the area, Riverfront State Prison in Camden, New Jersey has itself become a dead man walking. Salvage crews are called to the emptied jail to execute an 18-acre [a 7-hectare] breakdown operation where they have to remove a potentially deadly substance.

Phantom Jet
Safety is paramount in every wrecking job especially when the job at hand is on an F-4 Phantom which comes equipped with a Vulcan cannon, live rockets and twin turbojet engines. With flammable jet fuel also part of the package, the salvage experts face one of their most delicate operations yet.

Yankee Stadium
Home to the New York Yankees for more than eight decades, host to 37 World Series and a Mecca for baseball fans worldwide: they don't come much more iconic than Yankee Stadium. Taking care to preserve as much valuable memorabilia as possible, the salvage crews set about dismantling the Bronx-based baseball shrine piece by piece.

Locomotive
After 50 long years riding the rails, it's finally the end of the track for one trusty old GP9 locomotive. Working to a tight eight-week schedule, can the breakdown crews manage to tear this old engine apart and salvage an ultra-modern, low-emission National Railway N-ViroMotive from the wreckage?

Danger Bridge
Irreparably damaged by floods in 2009, the Piacenza Bridge across the Po River needs taking down and fast. Faced with rising water levels, fierce currents and a tough 90% recycling mandate, Italian deconstruction experts Despe Demolizioni Speciali attempt to bring it down without even setting foot on its increasingly unstable structure.

EPISODE GUIDE

Breaking Up The Biggest: Space Shuttle Boosters

Join the technicians and engineers who recover – and re-assemble – the essential Solid Rocket Boosters used to launch space shuttles into orbit.
Breaking Up The Biggest: Danger Bridge

The team demolishes the Piacenza bridge, a steel and concrete structure which spans 3,300 feet over both land and water.
Breaking Up The Biggest: Navy Tanker

The demolition experts gut and recycle the USS Savannah, an oil tanker used by the US Navy for over 20 years.
Breaking Up The Biggest: Cargo Truck

A team's green credentials are stretched to the limit as they break down a massive Euro truck in Sweden, aiming to recycle 90% of its parts.
Breaking Up The Biggest: Space Shuttle Boosters

Join the technicians and engineers who recover – and re-assemble – the essential Solid Rocket Boosters used to launch space shuttles into orbit.
Breaking Up The Biggest: Maximum Security

The team tackles a building that was made to be virtually impenetrable: the Riverfront State Prison in Camden, New Jersey.
Breaking Up The Biggest: Prison

The team tackles a building that was made to be virtually impenetrable: the Riverfront State Prison in Camden, New Jersey.
Breaking Up The Biggest: Locomotive

After 50 years riding the rails, a trusty GP9 locomotive is headed for the scrapheap. Can the crew salvage a modern engine from the wreckage?
Breaking Up The Biggest: Phantom Jet

The F-4 Phantom flew in squadrons for the United States, Europe and Asia, but these winged warriors have a shelf life and must be broken down.
Breaking Up The Biggest: Yankee Stadium

Home to the New York Yankees for over eight decades, the famous Yankee Stadium is about to be demolished. It’s a monster breakdown job.
Breaking Up The Biggest: NY Scrap Yard

Gershow Recycling is a New York scrapyard which, in just one day, can turn 500 cars and 20 buses into a multimillion-dollar mound of steel.