What Happened To The INCREDIBLE Land Train?

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This train... doesn't need tracks.

With 56 wheels, this 570 feet long beast would be the longest land vehicle ever built. And it might even have been nuclear-powered.

In the 1950s the US military needed a series of early warning radar systems north of the article circle. Vast equipment and men would need to be transported through unknown hostile terrain - something that even the hardiest trucks would struggle with.

But one brilliant engineer had a solution, a train that could travel overland built from a space-age material - aluminum.

Today we will be looking at perhaps one of the most insane, yet dead ends, in technology - a type of land vehicle that would break records - but never be used.

This is the incredible history of the overland train!

it was called, the LeTourneau TC-497 Overland Train Mark II. It would be able to transport around 150 tons to some of the remote landlocked places in the world. It would have a cabin on board for a six-man crew, with kitchen facilities, and be able to carry an unlimited amount of cars.

And it would be made of the material of the future - aluminum.

But to understand why this train was built, and its mysterious purpose, we need to go back to the beginning...

This story actually begins with a man with a plan - Robert Gilmour LeTourneau.

An adventurous youth, leaving school at 14, saw him studying all sorts of trades including woodcutting, bricklaying, farmhand, miner, and carpenter’s laborer, ending up with a sound engineering background working on car repairs.

But after that dream of being a racecar driver ended, he found himself in debt and needing money,

he went to work as a regrader contractor for the new american highway system.

Seriously this guys early life is totally fascinating and I am not doing it justice.

But it was at this point that he found himself enjoying the mechanical machines used in earthworks, rather than the work itself.

By 1935, he devouted himself to the construction of unquie earthmoving equipment and business boomed.

By the eve of world war 2,

he had multiple factories building custom machines in Illinoi, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and New South Wales - wait thats next to me here in Sydney!

He was so infulentual that during world war 2, he supplied up to 70% of all the earthwork machinines for the US army -

building a small fortune and also educating him about the sheer order power of the military-industrial complex.

Sensing the winds of change, by 1953, LeTourneau sold his earthworks divisin to the westinghouse company for 30 million usd - which is a staggering 318 million dollars today.

Why you might ask? To devote his future and his company to a revolution - the electric wheel drive.

[Vault]

As a kid in the 60s we drove from El Centro NAS to Texas prior to being deployed overseas. We saw this vehicle sitting alongside the highway being serviced or inspected or whatever. My brother and I were stoked seeing something the size of this beast. The Army had traffic control out so the drive by was slow enough to get a decent look. I think my mom got some photos too. It was epic!

[RichardShelton]

I grew up in Yuma, Arizona. Nearby was the Yuma Test Station (YTS) now know as the Yuma Proving Ground (YPG). The land train was a common sight in the desert areas around Yuma back then. A truly memorable sight to behold!!! The crew cabin module sat in a Yuma wrecking yard for many years after that.

[notroll]

The idea of a hybrid-powered off-rail train is much older than that. Young Ferdinand Porsche designed the "Landwehr Train" for the Austro-Hungarian army in WWI to pull munitions in remote areas - with one gasoline engine generating electricity to power electric motors in the trailers.

[theupscriber]

It's amazing they did this with relays and potentiometers! No motor controllers or feedback. They had all the cars communicating with each other to make sure each wheel was turning at the correct speed in a time when canbus didn't exist.

[almirria]

And the "engine" is located at the Yuma Proving Grounds, Yuma County, Az. USA and there were some very serious attempts to get it back up & running, but the equipment required to remake some of the parts are no longer made & available.

[enriquegonzalez]

In 1986, the creator of the of the original Big Foot Truck scraped the TC-497 MKII tires to build the Big Foot 5, which today still holds the record of the heaviest truck at 28, 000 pounds.

[Aitelly]

Land Train similar to Australia trucks we did saw on Discovery of Truck Train hauling many trailers of Cattle. I wonder if they are still in Service?

[RidinDirtyRollinBurnouts]

This is one of my favorite land vehicles. It's so ridiculous a concept that I've always been fascinated by its existence

[mattelder]

There are still plenty of scenarios where these vehicles would be more effective and practical than heavy lift helicopters. Helicopters have much more restrictions on where they can go based on weather and range than a vehicle on the ground.

[wafoxonline]

I actually got the chance to see what remains of the VC-22's cab and trailers abandoned on the side of the road in Alaska. It's amazing the scale of these things that you can only really take in up close.

[benmcreynolds]

I absolutely love this guy's engineering designs and visions. Some worked so well and if the had continued support and upkeep than they could have continued to use these amazing designs into today's modern society. I would absolutely love if these creations with all sorts of different types and models would be amazing. I especially love the "for the time" cutting edge designs with the crew living area, the electrical power ran off of diesel generators, the drivetrain for each individual wheel they built and he invented the mechanical internal structure and it gave these vehicles so much more capabilities and level of power, yet efficient machine's that could do tasks and work in environments that most other vehicles could not. So they really were so valuable during their moment in the Canadian spotlight.

[_NoDrinkTheBleach]

I was always impressed the Bigfoot 5 monster truck used original sets of wheels and tires from the LCC-1 decades after the train was decommissioned.

[TV-kjgi]

Mechanical Brakes will be still required on electric driven vehicles, because generatoric brakes lose efficiency on low revolutions especially on low speeds just before stop. Here mechanical brakes apply on speeds usually below 3kph and apply as holding brakes too. Classical applications here are huge power generators on power plants, or most known on electric trains ( light rail and heavy rail)

[hardtackbeans]

I had seen the concept of 'land train' many years ago during talks of it's revival. I was an engineering student at the time & my first thought was 'Someone didn't think this through'. But I have been wrong before & there wasn't much talk afterwards. Railroads spend a lot to grade their roadbeds. It would take enormous national incentive to make something like this work. And there is no need that large to push it through. Even niche' uses could be done more efficiently by several vehicles rather than one long one.

[casuallatecomer]

With some modifications, could a improved version be used for space exploration?

Like, during the colonisation of other planets, where bases/colonies may be built far apart but still need resupply but there's little in roads, rail or even an atmosphere for heavy-lift aircraft, I could potentially see this being useful.

[edwardfletcher]

The crazy thing is, this tech was so famous worldwide, it inspired a vehicle in the 1967 anime, Speed Racer episode 7 & 8 "The Challenge of the Mammoth car" !

[DocWolph]

Just shows that you can not rely on military contracts to launch a good idea. civilian uses for the land train would have made up for any lack of military applications, especially in regions with little to no infrastructure. Still the underlying technology, the electric drive wheel, would have made a huge splash decades earlier in larger and heavy duty vehicles.

[DrewHolli]

Dudde you're covering all my childhood wonders thank you 😊😊💕 I remember the schoolastic book fairs. The popular machines magazines always had cool machines like this in them

[Günther_the_Vehicon]

Fun fact the massive tires that were used to move this amazing vehicle we're also used to build a monster truck called Bigfoot 5 designed by Bob Chandler

[JohnnyChimpo]

I drive by one here in Alaska every day on my way to town. They have the remains of it over at a local tourist spot in Fairbanks, called Gold Daughters (a gold panning place for tourists). There are several other incredible vehicles here as well, like the 1926 armstead snowmotor, which is kept at Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum and it still works!!!!