The World's Largest Overland Vehicles - LeTourneau's Land Trains

for trackless wastes the trackless train this is no ordinary train each unit is self-propelled by powerful electric motors in the wheels to transport huge payloads with equal ease across desert sands or arctic wastes aluminium's light-footedness and weather defiance play important roles in laterno's mammoth new trackless train this print ad which featured in a series of magazines in the mid-1950s for the canadian company aluminium limited shows a high-tech vision of the future as the world entered a new era and age of aluminium use so came the vision of a vast all-terrain trackless train made with and extolling all the virtues of this lightweight futuristic metal however while the use of aluminium would only grow and develop as time went on letourneau's trackless train would prove to be an altogether less successful innovation than this advert would have led readers to believe however for a few years in the mid to late 50s and early 60s a series of innovative and highly unique vehicles were tested in both the punishing arctic north as well as the boiling deserts of yuma arizona these were the incredible trackless trains of rg laterno limited like many of the company's inventions each one would be a one of a kind invention and they were perfect examples of the eccentric and wildly creative style of their inventor they were ahead of their time in numerous ways but quickly found themselves outdated and outpaced by other forms of rapidly developing technologies of the day while they may have never seen any widespread use or success they remain some of the longest largest and most eccentric overland vehicles ever built but who built these vehicles why were they made and where are they now well to understand the how and why behind these vehicles we must first start by looking at the man the brains behind both the land trains and the amazing technology that powered them r g laterno robert gilmour letourneau was born on november 30th 1888 in the small town of richford vermont along the canadian american border the fourth of seven children robert was according to his mother from his earliest days restless inquisitive energetic determined and ambitious to his father and brothers he was destructive rebellious stubborn and fanatically determined to amount to nothing letourneau was a relentless worker and inventor with only his religious commitment to god placing higher than his dedication to work dropping out of school at age 14 he soon found himself traveling across the united states where he picked up the skills of welding and fabrication as well as a number of contracts and business enterprises that brought him into the world of heavy plant machinery and earth-moving equipment letourneau was no stranger to setbacks and misfortunes in life either but despite many struggles early on in both his life and business his skills in design problem solving and the creation of various earth-moving machines soon led to the steady growth of his business rg laterno incorporated the combination of his company's factories and workshops as well as rg laterno's wildly creative and often eccentric inventions led to a vast catalogue of wheeled and tracked machinery that could conquer and adapt to any and all situations one of the biggest early successes was the early turnapole a high-speed self-propelled tractor slash scraper that outclassed traditional tracked machinery of the time due to its large rubber tires that gave the vehicle far more speed and maneuverability than its tract based competitors by the time world war ii rolled around letourneau's company and the various models of large earth-moving equipment they produced was in a prime position to take advantage of the army's need for large plant equipment but also a company that was willing to fabricate and adapt machinery based on the ever-changing needs of the military letourneau's company would go on to provide almost 70 percent of the earth-moving equipment used in combat during world war ii and would mark an important direction of the laterno company as it worked to fulfill the often experimental demands of the us army following the war rg laterno limited changed the company's earth-moving equipment line was sold to the westinghouse company for 31 million dollars over 350 million dollars in today's money now out of the earth moving business r.j letourneau sought to invest his money in other enterprises the relentless inventor in him saw potential everywhere from oil rigs and forestry steel fabrication and of course lucrative and cutting-edge military research and development proposals more than that however he was keen to perfect what he considered to be one of his most revolutionary ideas his diesel electric drive system it was the powertrain that would form the basis for many of laterno's future designs and the invention that would make the massive land trains feasible on november 17 1950 he unveiled a prototype military aircraft tow tractor called the turnato powered by this unique diesel electric drive system such a drive had been around since the 1940s but it wasn't until the sale to the westinghouse company that laterno had the capital to re-engineer the idea into what would eventually power the land trains and other laternal creations the principle of the diesel electric drive system was simple much like a modern electric car electric motors could be fitted to each wheel to provide independent power unlike an electric car however power was drawn from a diesel engine generator that was fitted on board the four-wheel drive and steer turner tool was certainly not the first vehicle to be powered by a diesel electric drive however at the time it was only commonly found in locomotives as well as some large highly specialized military and mining equipment interestingly it had also been used on a similarly large wheeled vehicle from the 1930s the famously ill-fated antarctic snow cruiser built for the united states service expedition in 1939 this huge exploratory vehicle had been built as a self-contained mother ship for traversing the vast stretches of unexplored land on the interior of the antarctic ice shelf powered by a similarly innovative diesel electric drivetrain it also utilized huge balloon wheels and was very much reminiscent of the designs of rg laterno's later land trains the snow cruiser however was found to be underpowered and unreliable and after a few failed attempts at operating in the frozen antarctic landscape it was abandoned buried forever in drifts of antarctic snow the key difference between these previously used less successful diesel electric systems was that while most existing systems mounted the components and motors on or inside the axle housing letourneau moved them to the actual wheel mountings themselves eliminating the complicated extension of driveshafts and allowing much greater flexibility on the drivetrain layout in his autobiography laterno describes his initial pre-war experiments with these electric motors in his classic layman style and how at the time technology was not advanced enough to make the system work effectively i had it all figured out i built four big steel wheels and into the hub of each wheel i installed a secondhand electric car motor so geared that it would cause the wheel to turn around it those were pretty big wheels and it would be hard to steer in mud so i geared another electric car motor to the front wheels to give me electric steering for the supply of electricity i welded a big navy surplus generator to the front of the machine and powered it with a locomotive auto engine recovered almost intact from a wreck no clutches were needed no transmission system no brakes just some flexible electric cable to carry the power to each motor nothing for the operator to do but push buttons occasionally pouring a little more gas into the locomotive and hard going and it worked but my electric wheel had a hard road to hold before it got into the ground commercially both at the start lacked among other things the contributions from the other fields of science needed for their development by the 1950s however science and motor technology had caught up with laterno's forward thinking ideas and these independently powered wheels meant that machinery and designs could be fabricated in a more modular fashion their work in supplying the military during world war ii had taught the lateral company how to design machines to very tight time frames and to meet incredibly specialized purposes the company began producing countless inventive designs of all sorts of military and civilian uses almost all of which utilized these simple powerful bolt-on electric drive wheels with power delivered via on-board diesel generators from gigantic tree crushers such as the series g150 to more inventive military solutions such as the series ma31 landing craft retriever which utilized huge 120 inch diameter electric drive wheels to weigh deep into water to retrieve capsized landing craft many of these inventions were highly experimental and in the 1950s the laterno company began development on what would become one of their most experimental and most distinctive and unusual vehicles the first trackless train in 1953 the rg laterno company began development on their first trackless train since the sale of their earth moving business to the westinghouse company they were prohibited through a non-competition clause to build or sell any earth-moving equipment logging equipment however was permitted and so was born the vc-12 turner train the vc-12 was actually the second turner train the first having been an experimental version built and tested in 1953 with the vc12 coming along in 1954. the setup and design for both was relatively simple and reminiscent of letourneau's earlier experiments with electric drives before the war for the vc-12 the front lead tractor or locomotive pulled behind it three 20-ton trailers each one fitted with four literal individual electric traction wheels a single 500 gross horsepower cummins vt12 diesel engine mounted on the lead tractor provided the power to each of these trailers eventually this was upgraded to a total of seven trailers and a second cummins vt12 was added bringing a total of 1 000 gross horsepower and allowing the huge original 32 wheeled turner train to be capable of towing up to 140 tons of material the company showed off the new turner train on undeveloped logging trails around their headquarters in longview texas as well as taking it on the highway and even showing off its impressive turning capabilities by driving it through town the turner train was eventually demonstrated to the u.s army transportation research and development commander tradcom no orders ever came from this first generation turner train but the army were interested in the potential for large haulage vehicles and especially vehicles that could be capable of operating in extreme arctic conditions for an important task that the united states and canada were about to embark upon a joint u.s canadian project was underway which would see the building of one of the largest and most ambitious construction projects in history and to complete it they would require machinery capable of moving hundreds of thousands of tons of material and equipment to some of the harshest most challenging environments on earth the project was the distant early warning line of the dew line and it would require the help of laterno's land trains immediately following the conclusion of the second world war both the united states and canada began plans to collaborate radar and early warning installations that could better protect home soil from potential invasions especially from the threat of potentially nuclear-armed soviet bombers that could exploit the arctic as the closest flying route to attack and launch a preemptive strike on the united states and canada from as early as 1946 plans were put in place for the first line of radar stations known as the pine tree line that ran along the 50th parallel jointly manned by united states and canadian air force personnel this line was followed by the more northern mid-canada line but by the time both the mid-canada and pine tree lines became active advances in soviet technology and drawbacks relating to the design of these radar lines left them relatively obsolete and by 1954 plans were already in place to supersede them with a more extensive more highly advanced radar station line in the very furthest reaches of arctic territory and as close to russia as possible stretching from the furthest northwest coastlines of alaska all the way to the eastern shores of greenland this vast 63 strong line of stations would be located on the 69th parallel two to three hundred kilometers north of the arctic circle some of the stations would be unmanned some manned by small three to four person crews and some stations would have sizable bases with everything from workshops and libraries to accommodation for dozens upon dozens of personnel each station would have to be robust self-sufficient and filled with heavily redundant systems for round-the-clock operation in some of the harshest environments on earth to facilitate the build of this early warning system in the far arctic north an area that few humans had ever even visited it would require huge levels of infrastructure and uplift of both men and materials in total some 25 000 men would be required and over 460 000 tons of material would be needing transport to multiple remote outposts and some of the most difficult to reach areas found anywhere on the planet vast airlifting operations would be utilized as well as ship based transportation and landings but for some of the most inland remote stations locked in by snow and ice men and materials would have to traverse over land pooling with them the equipment and supplies they'd need to build and man the sites while it may have primarily been a military endeavor the main contractor for the building of these stations would be the western electric corporation and through them an alaska-based hauling company called alaska freightlines secured a contract to move freight to some of these distant sites on the arctic ocean the company was owned and operated by one of alaska's most experienced truckers alfred ghezzy jr who had pioneered many of the early road networks in alaska and al as he was known had an ambitious plan for what would be his biggest job to date guess he planned to move 500 tons of freight over 400 miles across the deep alaskan and canadian far north and through places that few dogsleds had ever even traveled the trip would involve 32 diesel trucks and trailers hauling everything from fuels and building supplies to prefabricated huts and radar dishes to be deposited at designated locations along the dew line several d8 caterpillar plows would cut through the thick drifts of snow to create navigatable routes and both spotter planes and local guides would scout out the route ahead it was an ambitious plan and the company wouldn't be paid a penny until the last load of freight was delivered it was a highly risky bed but to pull off this job guess he had a trick up his sleeve the snow freighter according to rg letourneau al ghazi had told him he didn't want a platform to shoot grouse off of he wanted a real train and the laterno company planned to deliver just that the contract called for a six-unit off-road freighter capable of carrying up to 150 tons of cargo it would need to be able to track through large drifts of snow cross rivers up to four feet deep and be able to function in temperatures as low as minus 68 degrees fahrenheit signing the order on january 5th 1955 the laterno company got to work almost immediately and in an incredible feat of rapid design and engineering by february 17th the third turn a train ever built dubbed the snow freighter was almost complete each unit or car was 16 feet wide and 40 feet long and each featured four huge 88 inch wheels with a diameter of 38 inches the chassis of each car was designed to be both strong and simple with a single central frame intersected by two oscillating axles that ensured all four wheels remained on the ground over rough terrain and also contained the mountings for the motorized wheels from this central frame outrigger ribs then formed the supports for each bed of the car on which anything could then be attached or fabricated one such car became the lead tractor and was fitted with twin 400 horsepower cummins diesels along with in-line ac dc generators that could produce the necessary power for all 24 independent wheel motors contained in this engine room was also the 2 000 gallon fuel tank intentionally located near the heat of the engines to prevent any freezing up front was an elevated insulated cockpit for control and navigation of the snow freighter itself and behind it accommodation and living quarters for up to four crew after some early testing at their plant in longview texas the second generation aluminium built turner train measuring over 274 feet in length was completed built in only six weeks it was an impressive feat of engineering and contained numerous innovative features such as oscillating axles regenerative braking systems and electric front axle steering before leaving longview it was painted in the alaska freightlines library of orange and black disassembled and then packed onto a railroad train to be shipped first to the alaska freightline staging area in seattle washington and then to circle city alaska where it was to be assembled for the journey north with their secret weapon in tow the giant train of trucks caterpillars and their cargo set out in the fall of 1954 on what would be one of the most epic overland crossings in the history of the arctic it was a multi-stage operation with first the local guides and dog sleds scouting out the route alongside a company plane which dropped coloured stakes into the snow to mark out a safe passage caterpillar bulldozers then plowed through the thick drifts of snow first along the established routes such as the stees highway and then on to the uncharted territories creating 25 foot wide paths through drifts of snow and landscapes few had ever journeyed on before behind them the huge convoy of mack trucks and the snow freighter itself slowly followed towing the hundreds of tons of materials required for the stations located on the arctic sea engines were kept running 24 hours a day with sometimes only a few miles of progress being made through the unforgiving conditions drivers who were usually paid 3.75 an hour were usually behind the wheel for up to 15 hours a day or more having to fuel up fix any mechanical issues and then crawl into bed for three or four hours of sleep before getting back up and back onto the road again the convoy carried with them a bunk house which slept 16 and also contained a shower toilet tool shed and workshop but there was little comfort for the overworked drivers and mechanics the incredible fortitude and strength of these crews was only matched by the unbelievable feats that their trucks were forced to perform in some of the toughest conditions imaginable breakdowns were a regular occurrence a common problem being snapped axles that would often break due to a combination of the heavy loads and extreme cold making the metal itself brittle the convoy would get stuck and snow drifts and trucks frequently wrist jackknifing or skidding off steep cliffs or uneven tracks slowly but surely however they made their way northeast following the yukon river as they forged deep first into the alaskan then canadian wilderness the convoy refueled at the refinery of norman wells canada before traversing over 150 miles of the frozen great bear lake and finally making it to their last destinations on the arctic ocean where the materials were required for the jews stations the trip however was only halfway done now unloaded the convoy including the new snow freighter faced the long journey back the hundreds of miles they had come to quote cliff bishop in his book 18 wheels a history of trucking in alaska these convoys had traveled east on such trips far enough to have almost been due north of michigan a long ways east from fairbanks and eagle alaska the drivers were truly pioneers of the arctic far north and i feel it's a great privilege to have known or worked with most of them the snow freighter had also performed admirably and had created quite a stir in the press documentary films frequently showed off the snowflaker now nicknamed the monster the freighter was the biggest success of the laterno's turner train so far and was frequently mentioned in the company's newsletters from the time as well as in promoting its futuristic aluminium construction even the soviets were aware of the snow freighter they had been carefully monitoring the progress of the construction and had even been tracking the progress of the convoy via high altitude bombers and relaying their progress via radio offering a stark reminder to the crews of the true nature of their mission the convoy eventually made it back to fairbanks alaska where plans for a second convoy were already in the works this however would prove to be the undoing of the giant snow freighter on this second trip of fall 1956 the snow freighter made it as far as eagle alaska when disaster struck about 30 miles east of eagle the snow freighter was being driven by the cruise cook who was more inexperienced with the controls upon reaching a steep hill he lost control of the freighter and it ended up jackknifing pinching together the fuel and electrical lines and causing a fire unable to tackle the blaze the control car burned beyond repair and left the huge machine stranded and inoperable luckily none of the crew were injured and while breakdowns and mechanical issues on the convoys were common such a catastrophic failure meant that for the vast snow freighter there was nothing more that could be done the five trailers were offloaded onto trucks and caterpillar trains and the monster was left behind in the snow now stranded and perilous trucker cliff bishop helped drive for a contract to retrieve the burnt out cab and trailers the huge size of the snow freighter which towered above the mack trucks that were tasked with hauling at home over rough tracks fast-moving rivers and snowdrifts was an incredible challenge especially due to the now useless geared motorized wheels which were difficult to move freely without power finally though six mack trucks managed to drag the once mighty snow cruiser and trailers down the taylor highway and into talk alaska the freighter and her trailers would eventually move to a site next to the stees highway in fox alaska where it still remains burnt out and abandoned to this day the now long defunct alaskan freight lines is still painted on the front of her cab and her unique motorized wheels are still visible rusted and derelict over half a century later while cliff bishop left the freighter with a great respect for both her engineering and the crews who operated her the snow freighter was let down by the same issues that plagued many of laterno's products most were unique experimental and built to order and left many operators of their equipment and difficulty when repairs or servicing were required while her ability to tow and operate in harsh environments was second to none the sheer number of parts and ease of repair that the more regular mac trucks and caterpillars offered as convoy vehicles made them far more usable and suitable for long distance overland expeditions alghazy would not go on to fix or order another snow freighter and his company alaska freightlines would end up heavily laden with huge amounts of debts partly owing to the construction operation and failure of the snow freighter despite her somewhat disastrous end however for a first of her kind vehicle the snow freighter had proved itself as highly capable in the environments that she had been designed for and laterno was still working with another potential major customer on the development of large overland travel the us military in 1954 laterno had produced the series tc264 also known as the snow buggy under military contract this concept vehicle originated from a request from the us army transportation corps for vehicles to assist in and traverse environments such as the greenland ice cap powered by an allison v1710 engine that ran on aviation fuel all four wheels of the snow buggy were driven by ac electric traction motors and utilized huge firestone 48 by 68 tires that were 10 feet in diameter and four feet wide in an interesting connection to the earliest pioneer of antarctic overland travel dr thomas poulter the designer of the original failed antarctic snow cruiser actually visited the laterno factory in longview to inspect both the original vc-12 turner train and the snow buggy only one single snow buggy was produced and while it did see some limited testing in the arctic no further models were ever produced the military were it seems however impressed by the performance of both the snow buggy and guesses snow freighter and both designs would come together when the military commissioned laterno to produce a concept land train for their own testing as a result on the first of january 1955 the us army hosted an acceptance ceremony for the laterno's newest creation at their longview plant in texas the logistical cargo carrier to the military this massive land train was dubbed the lcc one or the logistical cargo carrier to the company it was labeled the model ys-1 army snow train similar to the previous snow freighter it was made up of a leading power unit and three trailers giving it a length of over 173 feet and driven by 16 electric traction wheel motors the combined load capacity for the three trailers was 45 tonnes and a single cummins vt12 engine rated at 600 gross horsepower provided the necessary power for this overland snow train the snow train also utilized the same firestone 48 by 68 tires from the earlier snow buggy with the front cab and trailers sitting alongside the huge wheels rather than above them on the snow freighter reminiscent of the earlier vc-12 turner train as a result the snow train had a slightly squatter and more rugged appearance perhaps suiting the environments that it was designed to operate in the front cab contained the driver's controls which were surprisingly simple for such a huge machine and also a bubble dome which would be used to take readings from the stars for navigation these were commonly used in aircraft at the time would also be featured in the soviet heart of chancas the massive tracked overland expedition vehicles that were being built for the soviet antarctic service around the same time the control unit was articulated with the command cabin crew space up front and the plant room to the rear as well as a small crew space the rear of the lead car also featured a crane located in the front of the fuel tank this could be used to assist in the removal or changing of these 16 massive wheels each one of which weighed an incredible 2 32 pounds in both design and function the crane resembled that found on the 1939 antarctic snow cruiser which was similarly intended to be used for the unloading and loading of wheels the wheel rims also featured small hooks that could be used to attach traction aids or snow chains for better traversal the lcc one went through numerous trials and testing over the years as the army determined its capabilities and functions initially the lead control unit was relatively clean and featureless with just four lights up front along with the printed words us army eventually a series of spotlights would be added as well as a front frame that was designed to support an experimental radar setup as well as the logos and markings of the us transportation core another addition would be a large snow deflector mounted under the front bumper and intended to help clear built up snow ahead of the train by the 1960s it seems the testing and use of the lcc one had started to wind down in april 1964 it was sold as surplus and was reported to be located in fort wainwright alaska facing an uncertain future it would in fact sit unused and relatively forgotten for almost 50 years until in 2011 it was placed on indefinite loan to the yukon transportation museum and transported to their premises for display the lead car of the original snow train and some of the trailers are now proudly on display at the museum one of the largest and strangest overland vehicles ever made and now thankfully preserved for all to see the testing of the lcc one had proved to be successful enough for the army to once again commission letourneau for another addition to the land train project and in 1958 the united states army requested a quote from the company to research and develop a large overland train the final expression of what both tradcom and laterno had envisioned as the ultimate overland transportation vehicle this final design would be intended not just for the snowy arctic conditions but also for hot sandy deserts and arid sands much like the vision promoted in the aluminium companies advertisements initial designs and drawings started as early as 1955 and this final iteration would come to even dwarf the previous snow freighter and lcc one final design approval came in 1960 with fabrication taking place through most of 1961. by 1962 it was complete and testing finally began on the simply gigantic model tc 497 overland train mark ii to this date one of the longest and largest vehicles ever built the sheer size of the mark ii was almost hard to comprehend made up of 13 individual cars the mark ii stretched out a staggering 572 feet with an unladen weight of 300 tons and a gross weight of 450 tons fully laden 54 electric drive wheels supplied power and traction to each of the cars with the gigantic lead car utilizing three sets of the massive 10 foot tall tires the design and powertrain of the mark ii was an evolution of the previous overland trains one notable departure was that instead of generating power from the lead car the mark ii used two power trailers at the rear to provide electricity to the independent wheel motors while the lead car still had its own power this would only be used for maneuvering when all the trailers had been disconnected furthermore while previous models of the overland trains had utilized diesel electric powertrains the mark ii would use four 10 mc gas turbine engines rated at 1 170 gross horsepower each with one engine located in the control car and only to be used when disconnected from the train and the remaining three located in the rear power trailers this gave the massive train a total power output of 3510 gross horsepower when fully connected and the capability to tour around 150 tons of cargo the top speed of the mark ii was an impressive 20 miles per hour and a cruising range of around 350 to 400 miles which could be increased by the addition of an auxiliary fuel cell bringing the total fuel supply to around 7833 gallons the design of the mark ii command car differed heavily from the previous snow train with a larger more elevated cab that stood over 30 feet tall to give a full 360 degree view inside the controls however were reminiscent of those found in previous models now with the addition of more radar controls as well as a gyrocompass and other navigational equipment the radar was now also more integrated into the design of the car mounted on the roof and reminiscent somewhat of a ship's bridge for steeling the mark ii also no longer required articulation due to a clever all-wheel steering system that programmed the wheels of the cars behind the control car to turn at the same point the control car had originally passed over perhaps one of the most impressive aspects of the command car however was the crew accommodation in front of the engine room contained lockers and sleeping accommodation for a six-man crew a toilet was also built into the design as well as a galley and living space that featured a full-size oven sink storage areas as well as even a combination fridge freezer small design touches were also added to accommodate living in a moving vehicle such as stash away seating and special edge trim for the tables to stop items falling during transit the mark ii was truly the pinnacle of land train design it was a vast heavily powered machine capable of traversing huge distances as early as the mid 1950s the us military was even looking at the feasibility of using nuclear power for overland trades using compact power plants in his autobiography written in 1960 rg letourneau himself references this development to develop the power needed for this train i had to break with tradition again this time disregarding the long popular diesel in favor of gas turbine engines much like those used in turbo jet aircraft but the use of gas turbines is only a small part of it they are about a stop gap to power the train through its primary testing state after that it will be powered by atomic energy probably the first land vehicle to be so equipped however this wouldn't ever come to pass and the mark ii would be the grand high watermark for the overland train there were several factors that limited and eventually ended the development of the overland train for the us military programs such as the army's nuclear power program as well as expensive conceptual vehicles such as the overland trains that would hold them were heavily scaled back in the 1960s due to budget constraints with the ever escalating vietnam war taking up more and more resources projects such as the mark ii overland train were seen as an unnecessary experimental expense furthermore a technology was beginning to come online that would soon replace the usefulness and supersede the functions of the overland train that being heavy lift helicopters the development of heavy lift helicopters such as the sikorsky s58 or the massive s64 sky train had come on leaps and bounds even by the early 1960s and their speed maneuverability and adaptability invalidated the majority of advantages that could be offered by the ultra-large land-based vehicle in the end the model tc497 mark ii overland train the final evolution of the incredible overland trains never really came to prove itself outside of a few tests in the yuma proving grounds it was soon mothballed and mostly scrapped saved for the huge command cap which still sits in a plinth outside the proving grounds to this day inside the main power plant is now gone but the fully equipped living spaces toilet and even command cab still sit almost as they were some 50 years ago in the end the world moved on from the strange and bizarre land trains probably some of their most recognizable legacy comes from the famous bigfoot monster truck series however it has long been rumored that the wheels for the famous giant monster truck bigfoot came from wheels from the lcc-1 snow train while the rims that bigfoot uses however are definitely from an overland train and were reportedly found originally in a seattle scrapyard the rims differ to those used on the lcc one and are more likely to be from the tc 497 mark ii overlapping train the laternal company continued their development of the unique diesel electric powertrains and eventually moved back into the earth-moving business creating and developing huge often strange one-off pieces of machinery such as the gigantic series 6b electric digger or the tc 100 side dump hauler however in march 1969 robert gilmore laterno suffered a severe stroke from which he never recovered he died on june 1st 1969 at the age of 80. he was a man whose personality and inventive genius was only dwarfed by the huge machines he helped create and letourneau is considered to this day to be one of if not the world's greatest inventor of earth moving and materials handling equipment his foresight and predictions into the future of power and electric motors were ahead of their time and as laterno invited himself only limited by the constraints of the technology of his day not long after his death the effects of stiff competition in the marketplace as well as the company's somewhat experimental and often unpredictable products began to take their toll on rg laterno limited in 1970 the company was sold for the first time to the houston-based marathon manufacturing company and became known increasingly for their manufacture of the titan range of haulers for use in mines and quarries around the world the laterno company is still around to this day however and in the year 2000 they built the l-2350 electric diesel front-end loader which remains to this day the largest loader of its type literal machinery can still be found around the world from cranes and log loaders to even oil rigs but without a doubt one of the most unique legacies left by the eternal name is their strange huge and incredible overland trains and the amazing man who helped create them well thank you very much for watching my video on the laterno overland trains snow freighter vc12 snow train uh overland train mark ii uh i've literally just finished the edit you're seeing this live i've literally just finished this and i'm now recording the outro um i was gonna record an outro outside because i'm currently actually building a house in the woods in the middle of nowhere but it's pitch black all the time because it's very very north of scotland so i haven't really had much time to do that but the reason i thought it was appropriate is because there's currently loads of gigantic earth-moving equipment all over my land there's dumpers and diggers and rock breakers and everything and it felt very appropriate that as i was editing this you can literally hear the rock breakers and various things running in the background you can probably hear it in the background with some of the stuff that i'm actually talking about as well too so it's uh it's a good time to have finished it also really glad to hopefully finish this and have it out by the end of the year because um this sort of completes a trilogy for me in 2019 i released the video on the antarctic snow cruiser i then released a video in 2020 on the park of chanca and now i've finished this video on the overland trains and i know that two of those the first two are in antarctica and this one's in the arctic but i feel you know from the time period from the technology that they were being used the sort of retro futuristic style the fact of just how kind of unbelievable they are and what they were intended for the three really go together quite nicely and all of the videos all reference them people always mention the overland trains and the um in the snow cruiser video people always mention the you know the heart of chanka in the snow cruiser video or vice versa so i think that the three all go together quite nicely and people have been asking for this for a long time and i've been researching this off and on for about two years now the script has been being worked on i was trying to track down information a lot of my researching usually happens by ordering lots and lots of books as much as i can first thing i ever ordered was this uh the the thing that you saw the very start of the video for trackless wastes the trackless trade um an actual advert that would have been around around the time of the snow freighter because you can clearly see this is a kind of artistic rendition uh of the of the snow freighter so yeah that is kind of where it all began i then managed to track down with great difficulty this 2009 issue of classic military vehicles thank goodness to the random ebay seller who was selling this because on the inside was a fantastic article um with photos of the snow cruiser and stuff that i had never seen before and to this day i've never seen online um there was some information in here though that was a bit dubious about and i then managed to track down actually a couple of copies of rj laterno's um autobiography fascinating man well worth reading this book it came out in the 1960s obviously this is uh you know because it's older there's actually less references to the vehicles because they were kind of being manufactured at the time he was writing this but a lot of insight and just just an absolute madman he's fantastic i mean so inventive and so just passionate he's somebody i think you know there's a quote maybe in this book or someone else that he he could build and weld a machine far quicker than he could uh draw a picture of it you know and i think that sums it up like he was just so dedicated to the creation of stuff and dreaming up these sorts of ideas and yeah really really amazing so that gave me a little bit of a picture probably the best thing i found though and there are links in the description to you know these books um as well but this is probably the one that i would recommend the most eternals earth movers by eric g orlman um amazing book if anything reading this book puts the overland trains in context because when you look through this book you will see so many unbelievable machines that you will scarcely believe that any of them are actually real and what's more is a lot of them make the overland trains look normal it is incredible incredibly high quality photos i think just an amazing it's like a coffee table book the photography in this is amazing and i will say um the lateral company had great photographers i'm a photographer that's what i do and you can tell they knew how to photograph their products and if anything um a lot of their products it reminds me of uh the the mad uh inventor from uh the portal series aperture science it's just like oh it's throwing out mad ideas all over the place constantly like you know we'll make this side dump train and then we'll uh you guys in the military want a gun well we'll we'll put a gun on one of our big tractors and then we'll give you that and you know i think one of the other things that the turtle did was uh a big boat that could walk out of the sea had these big legs on it uh there was a bizarre machine that i've seen footage of i think that could set down and build like a concrete house basically so the idea would be you could roll into town and build these big suburbs mad absolutely mad and fantastic and of course that's that's what's great and there's a lot of stuff i was not able to cover in this video there are actually overland trains that i didn't mention there's there's one in particular um that is the side dump train i think that's really it though which was a another kind of experimental train that was made i think between the snowflaker and the um the maybe mark the mark ii freighter um there wasn't that much information on it i didn't really think it was relevant i cut it for time i didn't even mention though amtrak wars i don't know if any of you guys ever read these books um amtrak wars was a a novel series in the 80s and there's overland trains in it um it's a kind of post-apocalyptic fallout style universe well not really but it's it's a it's a post-apocalyptic american um post-apocalypse you've got all these different factions some are slightly culturally insensitive today but they drove around in overland trains one of the factions based down in texas which is appropriate i think it was texas anyway because of course there's no trains were built in in longview texas um but yeah i don't know how many people maybe saw this and we're like whoa that's cool didn't actually realize these are real like they actually made these not with guns and uh these ones i think have planes that fly off the top but uh really good fun and again another example of just the stuff i couldn't talk about i i mentioned bigfoot that's a not a point of contention but a lot of people all talk about bigfoot oh um you know the wheels from the antarctic snow cruiser came to bigfoot no they're from this and actually from certain trains and that's the other thing is there's a lot of misinformation out there about these trains there's a lot of stuff that i see on blogs that are reposted from other blogs and there's rumors and there's stuff that just simply isn't true and that's why this took me so long to research and the person who is responsible for this being hopefully accurate is mark moore uh there's a lot of people i've got to thank for for helping bring a lot of this stuff together but mark moore um credit to you man he is something else he's currently writing a book about these overland trains and you know he's got a wonderful website uh overland trains.com i think i'll put a link below he's currently writing a book which is due early 2022 and um i managed to track him down because i saw a lot of kind of old forum posts and references to to people discussing it i saw i think his name pop up a few times and i managed to find an old website that i think he had had when he was posting about the overland trains and i found a cached version of the site on an archive website and i emailed him and i said listen are you this is a weird question but are you the i do this a lot i message a lot of people and i go this is a weird question but are you the person who x knows about uh this cave knows about this strange machine and he was like yeah i'm actually working on this book and uh amazing he sent me photos we discussed in length a lot of the particulars and timelines sent me photos and diagrams his website is a wealth of information on the subject his book is set to be i think the the definitive history on all of this i think it's going to be incredible he has been talking to people directly involved with it especially the snow freighter which is a whole story in and of itself you could have made a single video just about that he even talked to cliff bishop and cliff bishop of course is the 18 wheels in alaska i have his books around here somewhere as well too cliff bishop's still alive that trucker that towed the snow freighter out there um and these are the kinds of voices you know that we're losing we are losing people from this time period and you know it it's great that mark's a little bit reminds me a little bit of the mini track uh video that i made uh where you know passionate people finding out about these subjects tracking down the people who are in the know and talking to them i'm not talking about myself i'm talking about talking about mark talking to the people first hand um mark actually fact checked my document for me i sent him my script and apologies mark because it is i am a terrible writer my grammar my spelling and everything but he looked through it he gave me the information of what i got right what got wrong and he corrected a lot of the stuff in here which i had sourced and had actually been incorrect and uh yeah amazing there's a few other people as well though um i'll put a link down in the description but folks who let me use their photos also i think it's margie who did a tour of the um the mark ii because it you don't normally get to go in there um it's just on a big plinth on display they were currently at the time restoring it they were storing the interior that i was showing the photos of because it's it's in pretty good nick i think they were just kind of cleaning it up and restoring it slightly and they got this amazing access just by chance to have a look around this amazing uh thing and i messaged them i said listen could i use that footage i'd love to be able to show people inside of it currently and they were like yes you can which is always appreciated and you know that's the most amazing thing the snow freighter the overland train uh mark ii and uh the snow train uh they're all still out there you can go and see them you could go to the yukon museum of transportation um you could go to i think it's the gold daughters who are it's like a little kind of outdoor museum uh they're the folks who own the snow freighter and you can go down to the yuma testing grounds and you can see all of these things and for experimental vehicles that never really had much of a lifespan outside of you know a few months and years of development for them all to still be around and for the fact that you can go up and see them and look at them and go inside them and for the overland trademark too the fact that it's still in even good condition is just amazing absolutely love it so yeah uh a very long project which i am very glad not to see the back of but i'm very glad to bring this to a close because this was threatening to run on and on forever the script had been sitting for ages and i neglected it for a bunch and came back and came back and forth on it um it's been really good and i'm really glad that i was able to reach out to mark if you guys are interested go to his website and i would keep an eye out for his book i will let you guys know when his book comes out i'll probably do another video maybe just to promote his book when it comes out because i think that is going to be the real history of this i think i've really just given everybody the cliff notes here i think a lot of the more interesting stuff and hearing first hand from people um is going to be the thing that i think really tells the story of these overland trains but anyway it's been a long year and it's been a long process to bring this thing to completion but we're done uh so glad for for you guys for watching and supporting me as always if you are interested in supporting me obviously you can like and subscribe and stuff but i do have a patreon as well too you can go over there and chuck in a buck you know i don't post on there all the time uh just because i'm a very busy guy but you'll usually get some behind the scenes and i'll let you guys know updates on what i'm working on and stuff like that too but anyway thank you very much for watching i'm gonna go hopefully publish this bye

Channel: Calum

Views: 612,130

Keywords: us army land train, road train, overland train, military vehicles, off-road vehicles, letourneau, letourneau sno buggy, letourneau sno train, letourneau snow train, lcc1, letourneau lcc 1, letourneau lcc-1 sno-train, letourneau tc-497, letourneau tc-497 overland train, letourneau tc-497 mark ii, letourneau gas turbine overland train, Extreme Vehicles, largest vehicles on earth, largest vehicle in the world, Arctic Vehicles, sno freighter, Letourneau Snow, rg letourneau

Id: abGyX2uwXsw

Length: 49min 10sec (2950 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/andersaur]

Great post, Thanks! Dude was seriously talented. Weird, out of the box thinking. In retrospect it was all doomed to fail, gap technology and all. But damn, he had great ideas utilizing the tech that was available and understanding that the tech needed just wasn’t there yet.

[u/Maiq_Da_Liar]

I watch this guy all the time, his videos about other weird contraptions are also immensely interesting so i'd recommend checking them out too.

[u/HATECELL]

And whilst you're at it also check out this guy's videos on the snowcruiser and the Kharkowchanka (sorry Russians, I was too lazy to spellcheck). They're just as well made and really complement each other