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The “Snow Freighter” was once the largest, most insane vehicle ever made: a vast ‘trackless train’ designed to traverse some of the most hostile environments on earth and part of a series of incredible vehicles designed by the LeTourneau company.
But what happened to the Snow Freighter and why is it now abandoned on a lonely highway in the north of Alaska? I travelled there to find out.
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00:00 – Intro
01:57 – Thanks Odoo!
03:42 – Building the DEW Line
05:34 – No One Builds it Like LeTourneau!
07:11 – The Snow Freighter
08:11 – Arctic Service
10:00 – Disaster Strikes
10:44 – Abandoned
11:37 – Tracking Down the Sno-Freighter
18:10 – Climbing Inside
22:15 – Costs & Failures of the Sno-Freighter
27:44 – Waffling on a bit
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Thanks again to the Gold Daughters for letting me visit! Remember that the Snow Freighter is in a poor state and should not be climbed in or messed with! Seek permission before going close to it.
It's pretty obvious you're not a vehicle guy, Calum. I'd recommend refraining from 'educating' your audience on vehicle elements and principles. You got some pretty basic stuff wrong.
1 minute 43 seconds in and I'm already convinced your wife is a keeper. Remember to do things she likes too
I love your videos – they are insanely great!
Time to find the one on the south Pole 💈
That would be cool to restore that back to perfect condition man that’s part of history
Can you imagine that wreck?! What was the driver thinking as he was out of control
From the Isle of Raasay, huh? I trust you brought a couple of bottles of nectar from the (relatively) new distillery?!
Theres one at the transportation Museum in White horse Yukon as well
So…. how do we Patrion/Gofundme on the restoration of this bad boy!
Why isn't it in a museum?
seen a bunch of history videos of this machine . but this is the first video of somebody finding it and exploring it that ive seen .
If this got repaired and turned into a hotel. That would be quite cool.
Can you imagine having something as large, complex, expensive and important as that machine and operating it in a harsh tricky environment and letting someone that doesn't really know how to drive it, drive it. Lol
Do a shot every time he mentions that each wheel has its own motor.
The snow cruiser for the Arctic is another great endeavor.
My dad a WWII combat vet told me about a bus he rode in North Africa during the war. It was coal powered using a bed of smoldering coal to create gas that ran an internal combustion engine. He was amazed by it and always wanted to recreate it but never got around to it. Have you ever heard of such a thing?
Have you got a wad of dip in your lip??😂
Some travel to see hundreds or thousands years old heritage buildings, and you choose to travel to see this shit instead…
what lack of history does to a people…
It brings to mind the Soviet Kharkovchankas and the US Snow Cruiser,
Wait wait.. 🙋🏻♂️
So much of the crash makes no sense.
1. The cook was piloting the machine?
2. By himself?
3. While the entire crew just slept?
4. He (was not familiar with the controls?!
5. The crew were only feet away?!
Such a shame it can't be removed and put on show.
Found & Explained has a great vid on these land trains, & I think you could collab with him on a vid 🙂
Thank your wife for helping out, she must be a jewel.
Quintessential Calum video. Love Land trains, such a fascinating topic. Even more after reading Mr. Moore's book in 2022 when it came out
Thanks Calum.
Such a shame that they put someone behind the controls of this beast with inadequate training…if that's really what happened. I sort of wonder if he fell asleep.
Monster? The Army overland train was the real one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QfCpxOJCFA
It's such a same it ended like that. Obviously it worked.
One for the algorithm! Your videos never disappoint
I would love to see those motors rebuilt
@14:28 it looks like there is a pretty significant repair.
I worked out of Fairbanks and points north for over thirty years and have driven by this many times. It looks like the trees have grown up over the years. I haven’t been by there in over ten years now. I’ve been to most of the radar sites around Alaska.
@CalumRaasay Thanks for another great video! It'd be cool if this attracted someone with the funds and knowledge to do a light restoration and get it moving again. Using one or two of the trailers, and convert them for hauling people, it could then become a useable ride for at a museum. Load the trailer(s) up with people, take a loop around some of the farther reaches of a museum, and charge a fee for the ride. The machine gets to be used, people get a cool ride, and it generates some revenue to support the machine and the museum. That all costs money to get it started, and I'm guessing that the Gold Daughters are just barely making ends meet as it is.
If you ever want to see one of the tree crushers, there is one on display in Mckenzie British columbia that was used in the construction of the Williston lake reservoir.
Calum please do a video on that hilux surf. The 1st generation 4Runner is my dream car let alone the model that led to it. Seeing those always makes me excited. The first SUV
you were in my state! i hope you got to see some live music and hang out and meet some folks — i'm a musician based in anchorage, i travel all over (for instance, my band The Jephries start our album release two in 2 weeks, and when we get back to anchorage, we'll have done about 1900 miles), it woulda been so neat to run into you somewhere. hope you had fun and come back!
Great video, fascinating! That's me now off to watch all your previous ones! Out of curiosity, what do you use to edit your videos and do the graphics? Thanks, Scott (in Glasgow)
I hope you took her on a fancy diner afterwards, lad
So can you buy it?
What a wonderful story. I spent a month at DYE Main (Cape Dyer, Baffin Island) helping direct the field portion of an environmental assessment. Radar towers still standing, giant banks of vacuum tubes frozen in ice on the old operation buildings. The scale of the effort in building and running these and the mess left behind was astonishing.
What a place. Station is 20 km up a road from the fijord where the airstrip and barge landing were located. From the upper station you could look out towards Greenland, watching multi km wide icebergs drift by from the top of a 1000m cliff.
Super cool…❤❤❤❤
Wait the US government screwed over someone else shockingly……NOT!
I'd always wondered what these vehicles were for. Thank you for clearing that up.
thanks, from Alaska!
Someone get diesel dave to buy this lol
Things massive dude
That is quite amazing