“The Incredible Story of the US Army’s Earth-Shaking, Off-Road Land Trains: Oh, Your Pickup Has a Lift? That’s Cute”, 2020-05-25 ():
You need to get 500 tons of supplies from Fairbanks, Alaska to the Arctic Ocean—a journey of about 400 miles through pure wilderness. There are no roads, very few airstrips, and endless ice. You’re going to have to withstand −68° temperatures. Also, nuclear armageddon is on the menu if you’re not quick about it. You, my friend, need a LeTourneau land train.
…Born in 1888, Robert Gilmore LeTourneau was an inventor of heavy machinery. In WWII, 70% of the Allies’ earth-moving equipment was created by LeTourneau Technologies, Inc. Having very little formal education, LeTourneau began his working career as an ironmonger. By the time he died in 1969 he was tremendously wealthy and personally held nearly 300 patents. He is buried on the campus of the University he founded in his name, where his gravestone reads “MOVER OF MEN AND MOUNTAINS.” Just a little character development for you. LeTourneau had spent the early 1950s perfecting a sort of diesel-electric drivetrain for multi-wheeled heavy-machinery. The system—somewhat similar in concept to the sort used on many locomotives—used a combustion engine to spin an electric generator. This generator would send its power to hub motors mounted to each wheel of the vehicle, allowing for multi-wheel-drive without differentials, driveshafts, or the drivetrain losses associated with them…Developed to haul lumber out of forests over rough terrain, the VC-12 had a hauling capacity of 140 tons. A second version saw LeTourneau add three more cargo trailers and another control cab out back with a second Cummins diesel, much like a real train would be set up with multiple locomotives. TRADCOM caught wind of the project and asked for a demonstration.
…The VC-22 was quickly assembled in a little more than a month. This is impressive considering it was one of the longest (if not the longest) off-road vehicle ever built at the time, with its six cars (including the locomotive) measuring a total of 274 feet. Each car had four driven wheels, resulting in 24-wheel-drive courtesy of two 400 horsepower Cummins diesel engines and the now-familiar hub motor setup. It had a payload capacity of 150 tons. Thanks to its 7.3-foot-tall wheels and tires, it could traverse nearly any terrain. It had a very successful first season hauling freight to the DEW Line, but a year later it jackknifed and a fire started in the engine room that rendered it inoperable. Soon after, Alaska Freightlines’ contract with Western Electric ended and the VC-22 was hauled out of Canada and left on the side of a highway in central Alaska, where it remains to this day.
…It might not sound like it, but the Army was very impressed with the LCC-1’s capabilities. So in 1958, officials commissioned the construction of its successor, the longest off-road vehicle ever and LeTourneau’s final triumph: the TC-497 Overland Train Mark II. The TC-497 is a truly remarkable feat of engineering. Capable of hauling 150 tons at 20MPH for nearly 400 miles (this range could be extended by carrying extra fuel cars), it was powered by four 1,170-hp gas turbine engines. Only one of these engines was in the locomotive, with the other three were housed in their own separate cars. It retained the hub motor system from previous overland trains as well, meaning all 54 wheels on the vehicle were powered…The TC-497 was tested by the Army in 1962 at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona. The results were once again impressive—but so were simultaneous advances in heavy-lift helicopters like the Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe, a fleet of which could accomplish what the TC-497 promised with a fraction of the time and effort. The time of solving a problem like remote logistics with a massive, almost cartoonish machine like an overland train was over.