Around these parts, there’s nothing we love more than the history of Arctic/Antarctic exploration, the Cold War and big ass vehicles that made both possible. So when my favorite YouTuber Calum actually found another overland train still in existence, this one used to resupply nuclear missile detection sites hidden deep in the underbrush of a small museum in rural Alaska, it was like seeing an old friend but for the first time.
Last year, Calum visited the TC-4970, which was the largest overland vehicle ever built. Today the control cab for the train bakes away in the Yuma, Arizona sun at a U.S. army base. This time he’s traipsing through the mosquito-infested Alaskan underbrush to bring us to another massive LeTourneau-built overland train—the VC-22 “Sno Freighter” built for Alaska Freight Lines.
At 14-feet high and 16-feet wide, the massive VC-22 was called “monstrous” by the press at the time. What purpose did this massive vehicle serve? The U.S. and Canada partnered to build one of the largest building projects in the history of the world: The Distant Early Warning Line, or DEW line. The DEW line was a vast, 3,000 mile line of early warning radar stations stretched across the Arctic to detect incoming soviet missiles.
But this is the Arctic, it’s wild and unpredictable and undeveloped. Building and supplying anything, let alone 3,000 miles of radar detection equipment would be very difficult today, let alone using 1950s technology.
Enter Alaska Freight Lines. The company pitched dragging 500 tons of materials through the Alaskan wilderness for the government and, along the way, the company would literally build the road to allow future deliveries. In a make-or-break style contract that would see the company stiffed if it failed to deliver.
Enter the giant vehicle builder, LeTourneau and the trackless train featuring its revolutionary “turn-and-torque” electric hub motors. Alaska Freight was encouraged by the U.S. government to use LeTourneau, which quickly produced the Sno Freighter; an overland train with five cars feature 24 wheels, each with their own electric motor.
I won’t ruin the fascinating story any future for you, but this big beautiful beast of a vehicle was not long for this world. Calum actually climbs inside the old Sno Freighter and gives us a fascinating look at what life was like for crews. His effort to track down and document this vehicle makes for a fascinating viewing. and I encourage you to give it a watch.
We’ve covered a ton of these vehicles before, such as the equally ill-fated Antarctic Snow Cruiser and the Volkswagen Beetles that made Antarctic life possible for crews in the ’70s.