美国赌城拉斯维加斯上月开了一家全世界最大的挖土机主题游乐公园，14岁以上的消费者在支付400美元的门票后就可以在专业人员指导下驾驶大型推土机或挖土机进行游艺项目。据悉，这个游乐场是创办人埃德•玛姆在2004年装修房子时突发奇想的，最初建在科罗拉多州，后因当地的气候和地理位置限制而迁到拉斯维加斯。目前，该游乐场占地5英亩（约合20234平方米），有十名员工。消费者购买门票后将获得3个小时的游艺时间，前半小时为安全操作讲解，之后就可以自己驾驶推土机或挖土机进行挖坑、堆土堆或者运篮球等项目。游乐场发言人表示，驾驶挖土机的项目很受女性喜爱，她们很喜欢掌控重型机械的感觉。今后他们还计划在亚特兰大、纽约甚至东京、澳大利亚等地开设同类型的主题游乐园。

Slam dunk: One of the excavator exercises that people can do at the park to get used to the diggers before being let loose involves plucking basketballs form the tops of cones. Click for more pictures

It's first glance it looks like a sprawling building site.

But this is actually the world's biggest digger playground - allowing grown-ups to take the controls of giant trucks in gambling capital Las Vegas.

Ed Mumm dreamed up the idea while he was using one of the enormous machines in 2004 to renovate his house in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

The developer became so distracted by playing with the digger that after several days he realised that he had not done any work on the building.

But although the property took longer to finish than expected, last month Mr Mumm opened the world's largest and the U.S's first digger theme park called 'Dig This' in the glamorous city.

The attraction, around five miles west of Las Vegas Boulevard, includes among others a pair of Caterpillar D5 track-type bulldozers and three Caterpillar 315CL hydraulic excavators.

Visitors can buy three-hour packages that consist of a 30-minute safety and operation orientation followed by two hours of maneuvering either a bulldozer or excavator.

Guests can either dig a trench up to 10ft deep or build an earthen mound; there are also skill tests like picking and moving 2,000-lb tires or scooping basketballs from atop safety cones.

Mr Mumm said: 'I wasn't making much progress on the house, but I was having great time. I felt that it was something everyone could enjoy, and there was nothing like it out there.'

Mr Mumm opened a pilot version of Dig This in 2007 near his home in northwest Colorado. It was built on 10 acres and ran for three years before he decided to move to Las Vegas.

The $1-million theme park is on more than five acres of land with 10 employees, a 2,850-sq-ft office, gift shop and training facility. It costs $400 to play in the dirt with the diggers.

Guests must be at least 14 years old and can use headsets to communicate with each other and an instructor.

A small number of digger parks have opened in the UK in recent years but their equipment is not at large as that which is used in Las Vegas.

'The previous park was limited by weather and its remote location, but it gave us a chance to perfect our business model. From the start I always wanted to be in Vegas,' Mr Mumm told the Engineering News-Record.

'Las Vegas is one of the most visited destinations in the U.S., with up to 40-million visitors and 5,000 conventions a year.'

Company spokeswoman Cathy Wiedemer added: 'Half of our customers are females, including housewives and grandmothers. Throttling up a powerful engine and moving mounds of earth is very empowering.'

Ms Wiedemer said they were hoping to open digger parks in Atlanta and New York as well as Tokyo and Australia.

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