BangShift.com LeTourneau Sno-Freighter

RG LeTourneau is a BangShift corridor of famer for positive. The man was an engineering and design genius and he got here up with a few of the coolest and best tools ever constructed throughout his life. Regardless of the state of affairs, it appeared that LeTourneau was the man to see for a machine that might full the job and full it extra effectively than anybody else’s would. Within the case of the Sno-Freighter, the problem was to design a automobile able to pulling 150 tons of products and supplies over roadless swaths of Alaska to assist provide the development of a nationwide protection mission referred to as the Distant Early Warning Line. This was a giant job in a few of the worst situations on Earth and it required a machine able to surviving temps that might get down round -70 on unhealthy days.

The rig that LeTourneau got here up with acquired the identify Sno-Freighter for apparent causes. Alaska Freight Traces was the corporate footing the invoice as they had been those awarded the contract to tug the supplies and no expense was spared. Like almost all of LeTourneau’s machines, this one used diesel engines to spin turbines and the wheels themselves had been electrically pushed. On this case it was a pair of huge Cummins diesels that made energy to drive ALL 24 wheels! Mentioned wheels had been geared up with seven foot tall tires and will lumber by way of snow drifts that might swallow even the hardest of Military vehicles entire.

The machine was an enormous success because it was used for each the preliminary mission and some extra after. It was one of many first wheeled automobiles to make it as much as the Arctic Ocean and it stayed in service for very long time, making Alaskan Freight Traces a pile of cash within the course of. The downsides? It was hellaciously costly so it was the one one (of this design) ever constructed, and as soon as it acquired lengthy within the tooth, there was no actual motive for anybody to personal it. The machine now rests comfortably subsequent to a freeway in Alaska, sitting as a reminder of the prowess and brains of RG LeTourneau and the expert craftsmen he had working for him to construct such a mammoth, dependable, and hard machine, the likes of which the world had by no means seen earlier than.

It must be famous that there have been different automobiles LIKE this one constructed, however this was the one Sno-Freighter constructed. The enormous, 10-foot tall Firestone tires discovered on Large Foot 5 really got here off of a later mission that was like a scaled up Sno-Freighter.

PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE RG LeTourneau’s SOLUTION TO THE CHALLENGE OF MOVING 150 TONS OF MATERIALS ACROSS THE ALASKAN TUNDRA –