Overland Trains: A Missed Opportunity?

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Australia has Road trains which are the largest vehicles allowed in the road. Some are allowed to weigh up to 200ton

Congratulations Simon, when I tap my screen to fast forward 2x, your sped up voice makes my son laugh the hardest out of all other YouTube channels I watch.

The 1950s in America was a period of vast ingenuity and creativity! What an era! The popular mechanic’s magazine during this time is a wonderful read of the technological / mechanical innovations… as a kid it was great stuff to dream about.

We have road trains in Australia. They are heavy, fast, and terrifying.

A snow freighter still stuck in Alaska? 10:41 HeavyDSparks entered the chat.

As a former LeTourneau University student, this is awesome! Great work!

Sounds like the basis for the 'wagon trains' described in "The Amtrak Wars" series of novels by Patrick Tilley.

CN 3502 diesel electric locomotive was used in 1998 to power the civic center of Boucherville Quebec after an Ice Storm took out many High Tension towers supporting high voltage wires. It took many weeks to bring back Hydroelectric to many towns.

There's a sort of spiritual successor coming down the line in the form of "follow along" trucks, with the idea being that a human could drive a Big Rig Truck, and be followed by unmanned trucks in a de facto train. the idea being that it splits the difference between the desire to put truckers out of work and the failings of "self driving" tech.

LeTorneau was also a HUGE innovative offshore rig company in the 1950's and lead to manyu of the developments used today in the exploration for oil and gas

being from STL, and having a little baby boy I pulled up right behind Big Foot one evening when he was sleeping and waited. a few moments later he woke up and pretty much shit himself as the windscreen was nothing but Big Foot's wheel.

wow, that was absolutely fascinating... but also somewhat strange to think of computer-controlled per-wheel electric drive systems that are already 60-odd years old! I didn't realise that these sort of systems had been around for so long already..

Rail reduces the friction. You need ten to 90 times as much energy to pull freight on rubber tires and paved highways

Trackless Train makes way more sense than "Land-Train", although we would definitely have fully adopted it if all of us were Space Dwarves. So definitely a missed opportunity.

I love to see Yuma Proving Grounds talked about in videos like this! This all happened before I was even born, but it's always a bit of a thrill when a video like this talks about a place I drive by at least once a week.

The fundamental concept of multiple independent 4-Wheel drive vehicles has been known for sometime. It was used in WWII using 6X6 trucks chained together with tires used when pushing was required. It had a high failure rate for the trucks as expected the pushing and pulling damaged a lot of trucks. However, it allowed logistics to move war materials in large amounts under terrible road/track conditions. The trucks were disconnected when crossing bridges to limit the total weight on the bridge. The concept used by R. G. LeTourneau was superior in that he used electricity for driving each wheel independently. Thus individual control allowed for smooth transmission of push/pull as well as reduced the need for push/pull dramatically. The use of larger and larger tires is also a well proven concept long used by "off roaders." Wagons pulled by horses had relatively narrow wheels of around 40 to 48 inches in diameter to reduce the power needed from the horses. Thus the uneven surface provide less resistance to the larger wheels. Weight is another wheel size consideration so there is a balancing of needs between weight bearing capacity, ease of pulling from weight and rolling resistance over rough ground. All that said R. G. LeTourneau was a genius to assemble all these concepts together to make a practical machine. One of the reasons the idea did not take off is right of way considerations and competition for the road space. These very large trains took up great widths and length of roadways. This was at a time when right of ways were relatively narrow compared to today. The disconnect between roadway engineers and R. G. LeTourneau's concept is easy to see. No communication or ways to influence the roadway engineers. Thus the scale of application of the concept limited the development and propagation of a very cool idea. Simply, people could not "see" the utility of his idea to larger use. This is common. People get emotionally attached to ideas. Me? I never marry an idea. They never marry you back. Thank you for another great idea in a "megaproject." Well done.

We still use road trains in Australia. Record at the moment is up to 1.5 km long.

I used to live in Missouri, right next to the Bigfoot headquarters. The truck pictured sat in the parking lot along with several other vehicles that all used the moniker.

There is some kind of arctic train that services remote outposts in Alaska. I saw it on the Flying Wild Alaska show. It broke down on the way to Kavik Camp and Sue Aikens