The story of the huge US Army land trains - the largest off-road vehicles ever made!

no less than 54 driven wheels a length of 570 feet and a total output of almost 5 000 horsepower these are just some of the highlights that make up the massively impressive overland train mark ii so stick around until the end of this video to find out the story behind this huge u.s military machine including its cold war nuclear showdown roots and its equally impressive predecessors in the early 1950s the united states and russia weren't exactly bodies a nuclear apocalypse was brewing and the americans needed a first line of warning to know if russia was sending nuclear bombers over the arctic circle so in 1954 the u.s and canadian governments agreed to build 63 manned radar stations about 200 miles north of the arctic circle this impressive array of radars would be known as the distant early warning line or dew line but after all of this was said and done one question remained what vehicles would the us army use to build the line it was after all one of the most remote regions of the world with freezing cold temperatures and vast snow fields well here's where the huge land train comes into play but first a bit of history because there were a few predecessors to the massive 54 wheeled vehicle i mentioned at the beginning that can't be ignored okay so one year before the plan for the dew line was put in place robert gilmore letterno a brilliant engineer and heavy machinery inventor came up with a contraption called the vc12 turner train it was basically a trackless land train made to simplify and assist logging operations with a 500 horsepower comments diesel engine connected to a generator it worked more or less like a train locomotive pulling three cargo trailers on immense rugged tires but the most important aspect of the whole assembly was the lack of a mechanical drive connection to the trailer wheels which meant electric motors could be used to power every single wheel in other words the vc-12 turner train was a 16-wheel drive lumber hauler thanks to its individual hub motors getting juice from that cummins powered generator letter no built a second version of the vc12 that had three extra cargo trailers and an additional control cab at the rear with a second cummins diesel providing power to the assembly that's 1 000 horsepower and 32 driven wheels in case you're keeping tabs as you can imagine such an impressive creation caught the attention of some important people among them were representatives of tradcom the us army's transportation research and development command who incidentally were directly involved in building the dew line along with the western electric company tradcom thought this would be the perfect vehicle to help build the distant early warning line so it convinced the us government to pay for a prototype control cabin built by letter no specifically for arctic conditions the result was called tc 264 snow buggy it featured a 28 liter allison v12 engine running on butane that powered a generator which in turn sent juice to four individual hub motors each spinning a pair of huge 10 foot tall wheels the snow buggy didn't have a suspension system and instead relied on the low pressure tires to cushion the ride and speaking about these immense tires four of them made their way on the famous bigfoot monster truck in the 1980s but that's a different story altogether and since i'm at the different story part of this video did you notice that youtube's algorithm seems to favor channels with a lot of subscribers so subscribe if you haven't already it really helps getting back to the snow buggy it was tested in greenland in april of 1954 where it excelled on the soft snow and ice thanks to the exceptionally large contact area on the ground subsequently both the us army and alaska freightlines the company contracted by western electric to transport their freight up north were so impressed with the snow buggy that they ordered a pair of overland trains less than two months later the alaska freightline's vc-22 snow freighter was done and in february of 1955 it was sent to alaska to start hauling 500 tons of equipment for the dew stations the contract called for a single locomotive and six cars able to haul 150 tons cross rivers up to four feet deep and operate at temperatures as low as minus 68 degrees fahrenheit or -55 degrees celsius measuring a total of 207 feet it was powered by a pair of 400 horsepower cummins diesel engines that fed generators which in turn juiced up the 24 hub motors for a massive 24-wheel drive behemoth the snow freighter did its job as it was supposed to successfully hauling freight to the dw line for its first season but a year later it was rendered inoperable after it jackknifed and a fire started in the engine room not too long after the contract between alaska freightlines and western electric ended and the vc-22 was pulled out of canada and eventually left on the side of the steez highway in alaska near the town of fox where it still sits today you can even see it on google maps and google street view but this wasn't the end of the letter no massive land trains remember how the us army ordered one well some time after the snow freighter was completed in january of 1956 the army's machine was also finished it had the same 10-foot wheels that wowed officials a couple of years earlier but this time the locomotive at the front was able to articulate letterno called it the ys-1 army snow train but the army referred to it as the logistics cargo carrier or lcc one whatever the name it was powered by a 600 horsepower diesel engine that sent power to all 16 wheels and it was capable of hauling 45 tons which is a lot less than the previous vc-22 that was left at the side of the road in alaska but unlike the vc-22 this contraption served a longer and more successful service life being dispatched in greenland where it hauled cargo all over the region from 1956 to 1962. at the end of its life it was abandoned in a salvage yard somewhere in alaska for some reason but luckily it was saved from the crusher and put on display at the yukon transportation museum in whitehorse canada where it's also visible from space on google maps this was the fourth installment of letter no's crazy land trains but the us army was so impressed with the capabilities of the lcc one that it ordered a successor last hurrah for this unmistakable piece of equipment so big that it became the longest off-road vehicle ever made the tc-497 overland train mark ii it measured a massive 570 feet in length which is almost as long as two football fields put together and it had 12 steerable all-wheel drive cars the locomotive itself had a height of 30 feet and its sixth wheels were also powered in other words it was a massive 54-wheel drive land train power for this behemoth came from four 1 170 horsepower gas turbine engines that were scattered across the train with one in the locomotive and the other three in their own separate cars the hub motor system was retained from previous iterations and it helped the overland train mark ii to haul 150 tons at 20 miles per hour for almost 400 miles uneven terrain but there's a twist the train was engineered to accept at least theoretically an infinite number of cars which means more fuel cars could have been added to increase the range and more cargo cars and more engine cars and so on the gas turbine engines were much smaller than the previous diesel units and this meant there was a lot of room inside the locomotive construction was completed in 1961 and in the next year it was handed to the army and shipped to the yuma proving ground in arizona where it performed well but in the end after all this effort creating a one-of-a-kind machine the us army retired the overland trademark ii mainly because newer heavy-lift helicopters like the sikorsky skyscraper were faster and more efficient at hauling stuff after sitting unused for a number of years it was put up for sale in 1969 but nobody bought it presumably because of its 1.4 million dollars asking price eventually all the cars were sold off to a scrap dealer and all that remains is the control cab which is on display at the yuma proving ground heritage center the mark ii and its predecessors represent an impressive chapter in the history of huge machine but i'm curious to find out what you think so let me know in the comments below also don't forget to subscribe and click the bell icon to get notified when i post new videos thanks for watching

Channel: MotorHeads

Views: 803,622

Keywords: The story of the huge US Army land trains - the largest off-road vehicles ever made!, 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, us army, us army land train

Id: 6QfCpxOJCFA

Length: 9min 39sec (579 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021