14 ms·

US Army's Land Trains (2020)

284 points by lbrito 4y ago

pimlottc 4y ago
Since it's not defined in the article, the "DEW Line" is the Distant Early Warning like, a string of radar stations in the far northern regions of Canada designed during the Cold War to provide early warning of incoming planes or troops from the Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line
- capekwasright 4y ago
  In an episode released a few years back, Omega Tau spoke with two individuals who had worked on the DEW Line back in the day: https://omegataupodcast.net/248-dew-sage-and-the-f-106-delta-dart/ https://omegataupodcast.net/248-dew-sage-and-the-f-106-delta...
- eggy 4y ago
  It didn't seem to help Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze in the 1984 movie Red Dawn ;) Interesting NATO is disbanded in that movie, and the harvest in the Ukraine suffers for some reason (blight? war?).
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    Of course, that was the Cubans that invaded.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Of course, that was the Cubans that invaded. In the backstory for the movie it wasn't just the Cubans. The Russians directly led it, and also Mexico went Communist and the invasion actually proceeded from there, so I'd assume Mexican forces participated as well. That would have been obscured because the main antagonist characters were a Russian commander and a Cuban commander. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn#Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn#Plot: > In an alternate 1980s, the United States is strategically isolated after NATO is disbanded. At the same time, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies aggressively expand. In addition, the Ukrainian wheat harvest fails while a socialist coup d'état occurs in Mexico.
      - imwillofficial 4y ago
        It’s like the exact story happened in reverse
        jacquesm 4y ago
        Except for the small detail that nobody cares about invading Russia.
        macintux 4y ago
        China might, as Siberia warms and Russia’s military forces are depleted.
        imwillofficial 4y ago
        No, China has no interest in this.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        China has an interest in the normalization of reconquest and regional spheres of influence superceding other norms, and an interest in both Russia and the West being focussed on conflict in Europe.
        rnk 4y ago
        Yes, because the next big attack of a major country invading a weaker democratic country will be China invading Taiwan. Unless Russia gives up on that meany Ukraine and attacks the belligerent Moldavia (expands the separatist region) because they want a victory.
        imwillofficial 4y ago
        The remaining Azov troops just surrender in Mariupol, they have been winning pretty hard lately.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > It didn't seem to help Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze in the 1984 movie Red Dawn ;) Interesting NATO is disbanded in that movie, and the harvest in the Ukraine suffers for some reason (blight? war?). Of course. The DEW line was mean to warn against a Soviet nuclear attack, but in that movie no such attack occurs.
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      Actually the downed jet pilot mentions DC, NYC, and a few other cities getting nuked.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > Actually the downed jet pilot mentions DC, NYC, and a few other cities getting nuked. Oh, that's totally possible. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, and I just recall that nukes didn't feature in the plot at all.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    The Ukraine harvest suffering isn't as random as you might think. It produced the majority of the food for the Warsaw block, and avoiding a famine leading to revolution is a good reason to start a major war. NATO being dissolved is pretty deterministic as well. The average American in 1984 couldn't conceive of the Russians actually making it all the way over to the US. Nuking the US, but not a successful land invasion. So there had to be some reason the US got weaker. NATO dissolving doesn't put any blame for that on the US, which is important for a flag-waving film.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > So there had to be some reason the US got weaker. NATO dissolving doesn't put any blame for that on the US, which is important for a flag-waving film. I don't recall exactly where I read it (it was some interview or something with the people who made the movie 10+ years ago), but I think it was a little more extreme than that. IIRC, (the perhaps unstated) bit of the backstory was domino theory was true and the US was badly on the wrong end of it. The NATO dissolving thing was just part of the picture.
    - aksss 4y ago
      > Average American in 1984 couldn't conceive.... "Couldn't conceive" is pretty strong - it was the era of the Cold War, GI Joe, a hangover from the Cuban Missile Crisis, the contras. Maybe accurate to say the average American would find it highly improbable, and our eventual victory always assured because Chuck Norris, Rambo, and the inherent virtue of our cause against totalitarianism. Anyway, I think the paratroopers that appear in Red Dawn are from Cuba or a socialist country in Central/South America, right? Which isn't terribly far-fetched in the context of the eighties imagination - maybe more accessible idea than a Soviet D-Day-style invasion. Also not out of line in history - didn't the Germans court the Mexicans in WWII? The French during the Civil War (I use the word "court" loosely with the French 'intervention', but hell, we got a holiday out of it). The film was marketed saying that no foreign invasion of US soil had happened, though it ignored the Japanese invasion of Alaska. The "average American" probably still doesn't think of Alaska very often except for reality TV, much less its history. https://www.archaeology.org/issues/433-2107/letter-from/9780-alaska-wwii-battle https://www.archaeology.org/issues/433-2107/letter-from/9780...
  - wombatpm 4y ago
    Tom Cruise was not in Red Dawn In the 1984 movie, paratroopers dropped from supposed commercial flights, which was the approach the USSR used for their 1980 invasion of Afghanistan Nukes were used later against the Chinese, which was why there were 500 million screaming Chinese in our side. 13 year old me was a big fan of the movie. John has a big mustache. The chair is against the wall.
    - mzs 4y ago
      The Soviets did not parachute from commercial flights during Storm-333.
    - skmurphy 4y ago
      I had to look up "John has a long mustache. The chair is against the wall. " They are explained in this blog post. https://www.housemorningwood.com/red-dawn-code-words-and-wolverines/ https://www.housemorningwood.com/red-dawn-code-words-and-wol... "John has a long mustache" is a callback to the movie "The Longest Day" as a signal to French Resistance.
      - rnk 4y ago
        Now those kids look like my nightmare vision of the American Taliban.
        eggy 4y ago
        Except if there ever is an incident, and something like those kids save your ass. I've watched many people intellectualize something, and then when it gets visceral, reach for the thing they repulsed or detested before. Sort of what happened during 9/11. I was a middle of the road kind of guy, half dove, half hawk. I grew up in a violent neighborhood fighting when I didn't want to. Four years of military school, and I watched my more dovish friends go total hawk.
        rnk 4y ago
        Those kids are my cousins kind of, in a sense based on where I come from and the people that I go home to visit. I don't think I have any misperceptions about the good things that those people can do and the hard work that let's say "rural people" do in their lives. But I also have learned they're pretty much universally believing in things that are not true, from the election being stolen to q&a stuff and an unfortunate fixation on racism. Pretty much they're mostly influenced by Fox News, their elders more than the younger generation, but plenty of people in the younger generation have inherited some kind of white grievance. I see those kinds of people as really unhappy because they see that there is not a good economic future in general for people in farming and rural areas. In my family the people that still have farms call them hobby farms and they have real jobs out in the world doing something.
  - aksss 4y ago
    Tom Cruise wasn't in Red Dawn, as I recall - maybe thinking about Charlie Sheen (the discount Tom Cruise)? Yes, wheat harvest fails in Ukraine, coup in Mexico, NATO disbanded. Cuban paratroopers in the first wave if I recall correctly. Still a highly enjoyable movie - one of the best eighties adventure flicks.
    - eggy 4y ago
      Hah, the discount Tom Cruise, that's funny! Yeah, I saw it in 1984, so it's been a while. My mind is slipping. Navy Seals (1990) was Charlie Sheen. Could have been better with Tom Cruise!
- JackFr 4y ago
  The US Navy also maintained a picket on both east and west coasts about 500 miles offshore with overlapping radars. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian-class_radar_picket_ship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian-class_radar_picket_... My father as a newly minted ensign in 1958 served aboard the USS Interpreter and would recall fondly one of his first conversations with the captain. My father asked about how the analysts they reported contacts to would know “when it was the real one”. To which the captain laughed “You damn fool. They’ll know it’s the real one when we don’t report in.”
  - ekanes 4y ago
    So, a dead man’s ship. Sorry. I had to. I’m a dad.
    - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
      Well you're not wrong, it's the risk you take when you sign up for the army. Of course, in 1958 I'm pretty confident the draft was still a thing so it's not like people got much of a choice.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  It seems amazing that you could build 63 radar setups that were manned with just 500 tons of supplies.
dheera 4y ago
Reminds me of Australian trucks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iFkKRh5kcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iFkKRh5kcM
tbalsam 4y ago
In his autobiography, LeTurneau talks about one of the land trains being nuclear powered, casually as if it was just another increment. This man was on another level. His faith was pretty fantastic too, it's a really enjoyable read of how he did a bootstraps-pull-up but also with the appropriate amount of good fortune ("fortune?") that generally leads to massive successes. The man was a prodigy/genius, absolutely amazing and from very humble roots. Now, the nuclear land train didn't materialize, but this guy is the guy that Elon Musk wished he was. The OG ironman back in the 50's or whenever you'd classify his active years to be in. Presumably because he died, on the nuclear powerplant front, but I got the sense from reading it that he was adored enough that despite the safety risks he could have relatively handily gotten something like that in production. Which would have changed the nature of our transportation today in a big kind of way. If you make a portable nuclear generator that can sit on a military land train (and this man could, just read his engineering reasoning you'll see why I speak of it with a sense of awe and wonder), then you can make that same generator and use it to power rural neighborhoods, remote electric vehicle stations, etc. The cost of infrastructure maintenance and installation would go down, and we'd have one more good option during the energy crisis today, with global warming and such as it is. Really and truly a peek into what could have been almost our current "alternative future". Probably not a bad one either, though presumably there would be negative consequences like Appalachia getting hit more hard economically due to further lowered coal dependence, etc.
- mcv 4y ago
  If LeTourneau was Iron Man, his suit would have been gigantic.
  - tbalsam 4y ago
    This made me laugh a fair bit, haha. Many thanks for that. The man was a 5 year old in an adult's body, in terms of size. Nothing was too large for the man. He would have been the Mecha king if he had lived for 50 more years, assuredly. XD
- eastbound 4y ago
  The daemonization of nuclear during the cold war, prerequisite for the MAD threat, led to hypersecure research centers, centralization of funding and research, preventing tinkerers from studying new solutions, and ultimately nuclear innovation completely halting. As you said, many suggest that if we had left it run its course, we might have seen nuclear stacks the size of a washing machine powering neighborhoods, and other applications entirely unimagined today.
drewzero1 4y ago
> Oh, your pickup has a lift? That's cute. My favorite fact about land trains is that the tires were later reused on Bigfoot monster trucks[0]. [0] http://bigfoot4x4.com/blog/bigfoot-5/ http://bigfoot4x4.com/blog/bigfoot-5/
- exhilaration 4y ago
  Fantastic link! don't miss the videos at the bottom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGcFtWnPUOs&list=PLkNbuDiWyZvQeBPr6u3K3M3rGhjV5W4CI&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGcFtWnPUOs&list=PLkNbuDiWyZ...
  - smm11 4y ago
    Is Monster Trucking still a thing? Seems I'd see it all over the place a while back, and haven't really noticed a thing about it in 10-15 years or so.
    - morepork 4y ago
      I went to a Monster Jam show in ~2018, looks like they're still going: https://www.monsterjam.com/en-US/tickets https://www.monsterjam.com/en-US/tickets
- geerlingguy 4y ago
  Yay, some local history... Bigfoot's Hazelwood, MO location (just outside St. Louis) was just a few miles from my house. The birthplace of the "monster truck". They used to leave the first model parked out by the highway.
  - drewzero1 4y ago
    That sounds like it would be pretty cool to drive past! A local auto shop has a monster truck with smallish tractor tires parked out front, but that's pretty tame compared to these monsters.
jamescun 4y ago
> The VC-22 was quickly assembled in a little more than a month. Most incredible takeaway from the article.
- deleted 4y ago
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  - deleted 4y ago
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digerata 4y ago
Isn’t saying “Land Train” like saying “Sky Plane”?
- hathawsh 4y ago
  Trains usually go on rails; this is a train (a series of physically linked cars) that goes on many kinds of land instead of rails. The name fits IMHO.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    > Trains usually go on rails Usually indeed. Besides accidental derailments, there was a time in the late 90s when a town in Canada intentionally derailed a diesel-electric locomotive and drove it down the street half a mile under its own power so they could use it as an emergency generator. The road needed to be repaired, but apparently the locomotive was fine and eventually returned to regular service.
    - dervjd 4y ago
      Here's a HN post from a few months back discussing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26233736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26233736
    - upwardbound 4y ago
      References about the Canada story: https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-diesel-train-and-d-1846307148 https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-die... https://steemit.com/history/@kiligirl/remembering-canada-s-worst-ice-storm-ever-part-5-postscript-what-happened-in-my-home-town#:~:text=There%20was%20an%20interesting%20phenomenon,to%20the%20Boucherville%20town%20hall https://steemit.com/history/@kiligirl/remembering-canada-s-w...
    - a9h74j 4y ago
      I suppose they do fine on land as long as you don't drop them: https://trainfanatics.com/locomotive-dropped-dock/ https://trainfanatics.com/locomotive-dropped-dock/
jefurii 4y ago
This must have been Neal Stephenson's prototype for the arctic land trains in Anathem (2008).
- Lio 4y ago
  Yes! That was the first thing I thought too. I guess the future really is here but poorly diffused, as another great author once said.
wolverine876 4y ago
Why not by ship? Was the area completely inaccessible due to the ice? Too far from shore? I'm sure they thought of it, I just wonder why it was ruled out.
- worldsoup 4y ago
  These stations are all along the Northwest Passage which was extremely inaccessible back then, especially for the large commercial shipping that would be needed. It's become much more accessible recently with warming waters but still mostly just by small craft in the summer.
- walrus01 4y ago
  most of the year it's frozen over, the barge transport season to take things to nunavut is very short.
- jffry 4y ago
  > With no suitable runways or ports and heavy lift helicopters still in their infancy, it would all have to be hauled in over land. The implication then is that without a port, transferring that much material from ships to shore would be prohibitively difficult.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    Ah, thanks. I searched the article for ship, boat, sea, water, thinking I must have missed something, but not 'port'. They could build a port, which would provide permanent infrastructure for the logistics, but again I'm sure someone thought of that.
    - cortesoft 4y ago
      You have to get the materials there to build the port....
      - a9h74j 4y ago
        And get from the port inland, if you need to be particular about location.
DerekL 4y ago
The title needs “(2020)”.
frankus 4y ago
I read somewhere that these had a mechanism that made all of the wheels follow in roughly the same track, but I haven't been able to find an explanation of how they made that work. Anyone happen to have a link/explanation? Edit: Found this https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Steering-scheme-of-a-road-train-obtained-by-a-trailer-k-with-one-steerable-axle-attached_fig1_311309756 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Steering-scheme-of-a-roa....
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ducttapecrown 4y ago
  For those of us who don't understand engineering diagrams^1, could you write a summary of how it works? ^1: These are probably called schematics or something...
  - healthysurf 4y ago
    My total guess not based on the drawings - the wheels of the cars move with a certain delay as a reaction to its tow bar getting turned. I would assume this delay can be configured on a per-car basis because the cars farther back may require more compensation than the ones in the front. Although I am calling it a delay, I assume the mechanism is mechanical and there is probably a better word to describe the action where the wheels do not turn at the same time or with the same severity as the tow bar.
    - a9h74j 4y ago
      Wheel-steering or axle-steering perhaps? Some actual locomotives have linkages to consistently steer individual axles to match the overal curvature of the track.
  - robocat 4y ago
    I did a quick Google. Play with some keywords, especially searching for images: drawbar steering-angle turntable dolly Ackerman train The usual design is to use mechanical linkages to steer the wheels, with varying levels of complexity that have different compromises. A complicated double Ackermann example (scroll down for plan view): https://planindustrie.de/en/products/industrial-heavy-duty-drawbar-trailer/ackermann-steering/type-60/ https://planindustrie.de/en/products/industrial-heavy-duty-d... and look at other products of theirs from the menu for simpler linkage examples. Academic papers are about the design of linkages and turning paths, with consideration for tyre slippage, obstacle avoidance, following, etcetera. The more mathematical papers use an idealised world on a flat surface (ignoring: surface tilts; terrain elevation changes/steps; slippery or soft surfaces especially if variable). Some modern systems use computer controlled power and steering to wheels to help avoid the errors in reality of idealised systems. It is a huge industry, but we need a https://ciechanow.ski/ https://ciechanow.ski/ type person to give us a nice model to play with.
niviksha 4y ago
Great read! Minor nit - shouldn't they be called 'road trains'? The other kind are also land trains, no?
- izzydata 4y ago
  I had the same thought. Not many water and air trains going around.
- hammock 4y ago
  Trackless train. Backcountry train
- btbuildem 4y ago
  "Road train" is a monicker for multi-trailer semis. These are quite common in Australia. In North America we sometimes see doubles, but I don't think they quite qualify for the name.
  - ducttapecrown 4y ago
    Last year I drove up I5 and counted at least 20 triples!
    - tomcam 4y ago
      In Aus they can be up to 5 or 6, 120 wheelers. And I think they might be driven by kangaroos. I could be wrong about that part.
- andylynch 4y ago
  They are different from road trains- these were built to drive through untracked wilderness. Wikipedia calls them ‘overland trains’ Road trains were invented in Australia to haul livestock and general freight on their long, empty roads
  - nomilk 4y ago
    For anyone interested in what a road train looks like: https://www.google.com/search?q=road+train+australia&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=road+train+australia&tbm=isc...
VLM 4y ago
Very small compared to coal draglines like "big muskie" Why make a mere train to eventually make a building, when you can make a large building that moves? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Muskie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Muskie Interesting to think that Big Muskie was significantly larger in all dimensions than the residence hall I lived in for my first year of university. One machine moved more material than two panama canals in its lifespan... Big Muskie was not a fast mover but it could have made that proverbial 400 mile trip in about 5 months, which isn't all that bad. I do believe it would have cost more overall, which is why they didn't do it this way. I would imagine trying to ford a river with Big Muskie would have been very exciting indeed.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  Still digging... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_293 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_293
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Different continent.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
      Same Planet.
- Severian 4y ago
  it wouldn't have made it, as it ran off of electric power. It trailed a huge electrical cable. Which makes sense as it was operated by American Electric Power. You can visit the bucket at Miners' Memorial Park where it's on top of a hill ( which I have to visit to get cell service when I camp nearby). It's the size of a small house.
jeffybefffy519 4y ago
Unrelated, but in the Netflix series Snowpiercer - I never understood why its not a vehicle like but is instead a huge train besides Wilford just liking trains?
- oneoff786 4y ago
  I haven’t watched the Netflix adaption but I think they were trying to suggest it’s a fixed loop with no driver. That felt thematically appropriate
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  is it the dumbest concept in all fiction?
  - hanoz 4y ago
    No. That would be machines have taken over the world but thier only source of electicity is farms of dreaming humans.
    - tomcam 4y ago
      Hilarious and appropriate but also poetic
  - healthysurf 4y ago
    The dumber part of that world is that there was a separate train of very similar or identical design that managed to defeat the "can't stop for prolonged period of time" plot point using nothing but what was available on the train, and it was somehow able to do this only after the world ended and not before.
- Fomite 4y ago
  Because it's one of those classic "The story is about what happens when we accept the conceit of the setting" sci-fi approaches. It's a train, because there's exploration to be done around what happens on a journey that is both linear and fixed.
grendelt 4y ago
This sort of lore is drilled into the engineering students at LeTourneau University (my alma mater). There's an entire mini museum setup to LeTourneau's achievements on campus. After working there after grad school I realized much of LeTourneau's "genius" was some form of reductionism. problem: "We need a machine that can grab these logs from these trees we cut down." solution: "Why not make a gigantic claw and put it on wheels?" https://www.imcdb.org/i236846.jpg https://www.imcdb.org/i236846.jpg problem: "All these trees are in the way. We just need a way to quickly clear the area." solution: "Why not just stomp them down?" 'Stomp them down?' "Yeah" http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1964-tree-stomper-robert-g-letourneau-american/ http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1964-tree-stomper-... problem: "Ok, RG. Some trees we can't just stomp" solution: "Ok. Let's just drive over them them." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9yvNESLPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9yvNESLPo There's this saying: "Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands." RG was never guilty of making anything "barely". Dude straight over over did it on a lot of projects. He took small simple machines and just scaled them tf up. He didn't do small. "You've got a big problem? You just need a bigger machine." is something that fits with what his machinery says about his design choices. He filled a niche for sure. His style and creations fit at a unique time in American history. American steel and manufacture was very much in it's heyday. He had access to all the stuff needed to execute his big ideas. His conservative religious fervor also fit the politics of the day, allowing him to link up with Billy Graham which had some factional differences of opinion from the likes of the overly conservative Bob Jones and Oral Roberts. Seeing large numbers of GIs returning from WW2 eager to work, RG put them to work building gargantuan creations. My personal, somewhat cynical take, is RG also saw that each of those veteran workers had GI Bill money sitting unused. He formed LeTourneau Technical College on the grounds of a shuttered military hospital to train employees at his factory a short walk from the campus. Being a "college" meant he could charge exactly the dollar limit amount of tuition the GI Bill afforded. Being a private college meant he could control what and how they studied. It remains a quite conservative Christian institution and students and faculty alike are reminded how it's a "ministry" until it comes time for a student who can't pay or an employee that asks for a raise. Suddenly the "ministry" facade shatters and the word "business" hops into the wording. As soon as the matter is closed, it returns to its "ministry" persona (esp when asked to do something above-and-beyond). RG is a fascinating character nevertheless. He's even listed in the Offshore Drilling Hall of Fame in Galveston (yep, it's a thing) for his work on Scorpion an offshore rig for the Zapata Oil Company, then run by a young businessman named George H. W. Bush.
dwighttk 4y ago
why does adding "land" to train mean there are no rails?
- hanoz 4y ago
  Because it replaces the implicit prefix "railway".
- cortesoft 4y ago
  Yeah, I would have gone with "trackless train"
  - mcv 4y ago
    Off-road train.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  Scope. The land train goes "anywhere on land" (clearly not anywhere but many/most places) as opposed to "anywhere on rails".
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    Brilliant!
alamortsubite 4y ago
A YouTuber I follow recently put up a ~1 hour long documentary on the land trains [1]. It's well-researched and contains some interesting details not covered by the article. And if you enjoy that, be sure to check out his video on the Soviet Kharkovchanka Antarctic cruisers [2]. It's just as entertaining and what initially led me to his channel. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGyX2uwXsw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGyX2uwXsw [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6R-h06IsJw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6R-h06IsJw
ksajadi 4y ago
Interesting read but boy, does that website have ads of all kinds!
- unnouinceput 4y ago
  No ads for me though, but I use: https://i.postimg.cc/G3N3x4LQ/u-Block-Origins-plus-No-Script.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/G3N3x4LQ/u-Block-Origins-plus-No-Script...
divbzero 4y ago
Related: The US Army's earth-shaking, off-road land trains - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304788 - May 2020 (118 comments)
foxes 4y ago
To be honest this is slightly disturbing or eerie. It’s like a glimpse inside the minds of people from the era that set us on the trajectory of ruined car focused wasteland cities and climate destruction. It’s like art depicting capitalism and consumption. Simply scale everything up to solve all your problems! Just make everything bigger! Just consume more!
DocTomoe 4y ago
I feel we need a better name for something like that. "Land trains" invoke the idea of railways, and the first reaction would be "d'uh, many armies have dedicated rail lines, what's so special about this?"...
zeristor 4y ago
Whenever I hear of land trains I think of the SF novel series “The Amtrak Wars” from the eighties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amtrak_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amtrak_Wars Which I never got around to starting
- GaryRowe 4y ago
  Oh, it's definitely worth the read.

284 points by lbrito 4y ago

Since it's not defined in the article, the "DEW Line" is the Distant Early Warning like, a string of radar stations in the far northern regions of Canada designed during the Cold War to provide early warning of incoming planes or troops from the Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line

capekwasright 4y ago
In an episode released a few years back, Omega Tau spoke with two individuals who had worked on the DEW Line back in the day: https://omegataupodcast.net/248-dew-sage-and-the-f-106-delta-dart/ https://omegataupodcast.net/248-dew-sage-and-the-f-106-delta...
eggy 4y ago
It didn't seem to help Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze in the 1984 movie Red Dawn ;) Interesting NATO is disbanded in that movie, and the harvest in the Ukraine suffers for some reason (blight? war?).
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  Of course, that was the Cubans that invaded.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Of course, that was the Cubans that invaded. In the backstory for the movie it wasn't just the Cubans. The Russians directly led it, and also Mexico went Communist and the invasion actually proceeded from there, so I'd assume Mexican forces participated as well. That would have been obscured because the main antagonist characters were a Russian commander and a Cuban commander. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn#Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn#Plot: > In an alternate 1980s, the United States is strategically isolated after NATO is disbanded. At the same time, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies aggressively expand. In addition, the Ukrainian wheat harvest fails while a socialist coup d'état occurs in Mexico.
    - imwillofficial 4y ago
      It’s like the exact story happened in reverse
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        Except for the small detail that nobody cares about invading Russia.
        macintux 4y ago
        China might, as Siberia warms and Russia’s military forces are depleted.
        imwillofficial 4y ago
        No, China has no interest in this.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        China has an interest in the normalization of reconquest and regional spheres of influence superceding other norms, and an interest in both Russia and the West being focussed on conflict in Europe.
        rnk 4y ago
        Yes, because the next big attack of a major country invading a weaker democratic country will be China invading Taiwan. Unless Russia gives up on that meany Ukraine and attacks the belligerent Moldavia (expands the separatist region) because they want a victory.
        imwillofficial 4y ago
        The remaining Azov troops just surrender in Mariupol, they have been winning pretty hard lately.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > It didn't seem to help Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze in the 1984 movie Red Dawn ;) Interesting NATO is disbanded in that movie, and the harvest in the Ukraine suffers for some reason (blight? war?). Of course. The DEW line was mean to warn against a Soviet nuclear attack, but in that movie no such attack occurs.
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    Actually the downed jet pilot mentions DC, NYC, and a few other cities getting nuked.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Actually the downed jet pilot mentions DC, NYC, and a few other cities getting nuked. Oh, that's totally possible. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, and I just recall that nukes didn't feature in the plot at all.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  The Ukraine harvest suffering isn't as random as you might think. It produced the majority of the food for the Warsaw block, and avoiding a famine leading to revolution is a good reason to start a major war. NATO being dissolved is pretty deterministic as well. The average American in 1984 couldn't conceive of the Russians actually making it all the way over to the US. Nuking the US, but not a successful land invasion. So there had to be some reason the US got weaker. NATO dissolving doesn't put any blame for that on the US, which is important for a flag-waving film.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > So there had to be some reason the US got weaker. NATO dissolving doesn't put any blame for that on the US, which is important for a flag-waving film. I don't recall exactly where I read it (it was some interview or something with the people who made the movie 10+ years ago), but I think it was a little more extreme than that. IIRC, (the perhaps unstated) bit of the backstory was domino theory was true and the US was badly on the wrong end of it. The NATO dissolving thing was just part of the picture.
  - aksss 4y ago
    > Average American in 1984 couldn't conceive.... "Couldn't conceive" is pretty strong - it was the era of the Cold War, GI Joe, a hangover from the Cuban Missile Crisis, the contras. Maybe accurate to say the average American would find it highly improbable, and our eventual victory always assured because Chuck Norris, Rambo, and the inherent virtue of our cause against totalitarianism. Anyway, I think the paratroopers that appear in Red Dawn are from Cuba or a socialist country in Central/South America, right? Which isn't terribly far-fetched in the context of the eighties imagination - maybe more accessible idea than a Soviet D-Day-style invasion. Also not out of line in history - didn't the Germans court the Mexicans in WWII? The French during the Civil War (I use the word "court" loosely with the French 'intervention', but hell, we got a holiday out of it). The film was marketed saying that no foreign invasion of US soil had happened, though it ignored the Japanese invasion of Alaska. The "average American" probably still doesn't think of Alaska very often except for reality TV, much less its history. https://www.archaeology.org/issues/433-2107/letter-from/9780-alaska-wwii-battle https://www.archaeology.org/issues/433-2107/letter-from/9780...
- wombatpm 4y ago
  Tom Cruise was not in Red Dawn In the 1984 movie, paratroopers dropped from supposed commercial flights, which was the approach the USSR used for their 1980 invasion of Afghanistan Nukes were used later against the Chinese, which was why there were 500 million screaming Chinese in our side. 13 year old me was a big fan of the movie. John has a big mustache. The chair is against the wall.
  - mzs 4y ago
    The Soviets did not parachute from commercial flights during Storm-333.
  - skmurphy 4y ago
    I had to look up "John has a long mustache. The chair is against the wall. " They are explained in this blog post. https://www.housemorningwood.com/red-dawn-code-words-and-wolverines/ https://www.housemorningwood.com/red-dawn-code-words-and-wol... "John has a long mustache" is a callback to the movie "The Longest Day" as a signal to French Resistance.
    - rnk 4y ago
      Now those kids look like my nightmare vision of the American Taliban.
      - eggy 4y ago
        Except if there ever is an incident, and something like those kids save your ass. I've watched many people intellectualize something, and then when it gets visceral, reach for the thing they repulsed or detested before. Sort of what happened during 9/11. I was a middle of the road kind of guy, half dove, half hawk. I grew up in a violent neighborhood fighting when I didn't want to. Four years of military school, and I watched my more dovish friends go total hawk.
        rnk 4y ago
        Those kids are my cousins kind of, in a sense based on where I come from and the people that I go home to visit. I don't think I have any misperceptions about the good things that those people can do and the hard work that let's say "rural people" do in their lives. But I also have learned they're pretty much universally believing in things that are not true, from the election being stolen to q&a stuff and an unfortunate fixation on racism. Pretty much they're mostly influenced by Fox News, their elders more than the younger generation, but plenty of people in the younger generation have inherited some kind of white grievance. I see those kinds of people as really unhappy because they see that there is not a good economic future in general for people in farming and rural areas. In my family the people that still have farms call them hobby farms and they have real jobs out in the world doing something.
- aksss 4y ago
  Tom Cruise wasn't in Red Dawn, as I recall - maybe thinking about Charlie Sheen (the discount Tom Cruise)? Yes, wheat harvest fails in Ukraine, coup in Mexico, NATO disbanded. Cuban paratroopers in the first wave if I recall correctly. Still a highly enjoyable movie - one of the best eighties adventure flicks.
  - eggy 4y ago
    Hah, the discount Tom Cruise, that's funny! Yeah, I saw it in 1984, so it's been a while. My mind is slipping. Navy Seals (1990) was Charlie Sheen. Could have been better with Tom Cruise!
JackFr 4y ago
The US Navy also maintained a picket on both east and west coasts about 500 miles offshore with overlapping radars. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian-class_radar_picket_ship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian-class_radar_picket_... My father as a newly minted ensign in 1958 served aboard the USS Interpreter and would recall fondly one of his first conversations with the captain. My father asked about how the analysts they reported contacts to would know “when it was the real one”. To which the captain laughed “You damn fool. They’ll know it’s the real one when we don’t report in.”
- ekanes 4y ago
  So, a dead man’s ship. Sorry. I had to. I’m a dad.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    Well you're not wrong, it's the risk you take when you sign up for the army. Of course, in 1958 I'm pretty confident the draft was still a thing so it's not like people got much of a choice.
lostlogin 4y ago
It seems amazing that you could build 63 radar setups that were manned with just 500 tons of supplies.

dheera 4y ago

Reminds me of Australian trucks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iFkKRh5kcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iFkKRh5kcM

tbalsam 4y ago

In his autobiography, LeTurneau talks about one of the land trains being nuclear powered, casually as if it was just another increment. This man was on another level. His faith was pretty fantastic too, it's a really enjoyable read of how he did a bootstraps-pull-up but also with the appropriate amount of good fortune ("fortune?") that generally leads to massive successes. The man was a prodigy/genius, absolutely amazing and from very humble roots. Now, the nuclear land train didn't materialize, but this guy is the guy that Elon Musk wished he was. The OG ironman back in the 50's or whenever you'd classify his active years to be in. Presumably because he died, on the nuclear powerplant front, but I got the sense from reading it that he was adored enough that despite the safety risks he could have relatively handily gotten something like that in production. Which would have changed the nature of our transportation today in a big kind of way. If you make a portable nuclear generator that can sit on a military land train (and this man could, just read his engineering reasoning you'll see why I speak of it with a sense of awe and wonder), then you can make that same generator and use it to power rural neighborhoods, remote electric vehicle stations, etc. The cost of infrastructure maintenance and installation would go down, and we'd have one more good option during the energy crisis today, with global warming and such as it is. Really and truly a peek into what could have been almost our current "alternative future". Probably not a bad one either, though presumably there would be negative consequences like Appalachia getting hit more hard economically due to further lowered coal dependence, etc.

mcv 4y ago
If LeTourneau was Iron Man, his suit would have been gigantic.
- tbalsam 4y ago
  This made me laugh a fair bit, haha. Many thanks for that. The man was a 5 year old in an adult's body, in terms of size. Nothing was too large for the man. He would have been the Mecha king if he had lived for 50 more years, assuredly. XD
eastbound 4y ago
The daemonization of nuclear during the cold war, prerequisite for the MAD threat, led to hypersecure research centers, centralization of funding and research, preventing tinkerers from studying new solutions, and ultimately nuclear innovation completely halting. As you said, many suggest that if we had left it run its course, we might have seen nuclear stacks the size of a washing machine powering neighborhoods, and other applications entirely unimagined today.

drewzero1 4y ago

> Oh, your pickup has a lift? That's cute. My favorite fact about land trains is that the tires were later reused on Bigfoot monster trucks[0]. [0] http://bigfoot4x4.com/blog/bigfoot-5/ http://bigfoot4x4.com/blog/bigfoot-5/

exhilaration 4y ago
Fantastic link! don't miss the videos at the bottom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGcFtWnPUOs&list=PLkNbuDiWyZvQeBPr6u3K3M3rGhjV5W4CI&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGcFtWnPUOs&list=PLkNbuDiWyZ...
- smm11 4y ago
  Is Monster Trucking still a thing? Seems I'd see it all over the place a while back, and haven't really noticed a thing about it in 10-15 years or so.
  - morepork 4y ago
    I went to a Monster Jam show in ~2018, looks like they're still going: https://www.monsterjam.com/en-US/tickets https://www.monsterjam.com/en-US/tickets
geerlingguy 4y ago
Yay, some local history... Bigfoot's Hazelwood, MO location (just outside St. Louis) was just a few miles from my house. The birthplace of the "monster truck". They used to leave the first model parked out by the highway.
- drewzero1 4y ago
  That sounds like it would be pretty cool to drive past! A local auto shop has a monster truck with smallish tractor tires parked out front, but that's pretty tame compared to these monsters.

jamescun 4y ago

> The VC-22 was quickly assembled in a little more than a month. Most incredible takeaway from the article.

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digerata 4y ago

Isn’t saying “Land Train” like saying “Sky Plane”?

hathawsh 4y ago
Trains usually go on rails; this is a train (a series of physically linked cars) that goes on many kinds of land instead of rails. The name fits IMHO.
- robonerd 4y ago
  > Trains usually go on rails Usually indeed. Besides accidental derailments, there was a time in the late 90s when a town in Canada intentionally derailed a diesel-electric locomotive and drove it down the street half a mile under its own power so they could use it as an emergency generator. The road needed to be repaired, but apparently the locomotive was fine and eventually returned to regular service.
  - dervjd 4y ago
    Here's a HN post from a few months back discussing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26233736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26233736
  - upwardbound 4y ago
    References about the Canada story: https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-diesel-train-and-d-1846307148 https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-die... https://steemit.com/history/@kiligirl/remembering-canada-s-worst-ice-storm-ever-part-5-postscript-what-happened-in-my-home-town#:~:text=There%20was%20an%20interesting%20phenomenon,to%20the%20Boucherville%20town%20hall https://steemit.com/history/@kiligirl/remembering-canada-s-w...
  - a9h74j 4y ago
    I suppose they do fine on land as long as you don't drop them: https://trainfanatics.com/locomotive-dropped-dock/ https://trainfanatics.com/locomotive-dropped-dock/

jefurii 4y ago

This must have been Neal Stephenson's prototype for the arctic land trains in Anathem (2008).

Lio 4y ago
Yes! That was the first thing I thought too. I guess the future really is here but poorly diffused, as another great author once said.

wolverine876 4y ago

Why not by ship? Was the area completely inaccessible due to the ice? Too far from shore? I'm sure they thought of it, I just wonder why it was ruled out.

worldsoup 4y ago
These stations are all along the Northwest Passage which was extremely inaccessible back then, especially for the large commercial shipping that would be needed. It's become much more accessible recently with warming waters but still mostly just by small craft in the summer.
walrus01 4y ago
most of the year it's frozen over, the barge transport season to take things to nunavut is very short.
jffry 4y ago
> With no suitable runways or ports and heavy lift helicopters still in their infancy, it would all have to be hauled in over land. The implication then is that without a port, transferring that much material from ships to shore would be prohibitively difficult.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Ah, thanks. I searched the article for ship, boat, sea, water, thinking I must have missed something, but not 'port'. They could build a port, which would provide permanent infrastructure for the logistics, but again I'm sure someone thought of that.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    You have to get the materials there to build the port....
    - a9h74j 4y ago
      And get from the port inland, if you need to be particular about location.

DerekL 4y ago

The title needs “(2020)”.

frankus 4y ago

I read somewhere that these had a mechanism that made all of the wheels follow in roughly the same track, but I haven't been able to find an explanation of how they made that work. Anyone happen to have a link/explanation? Edit: Found this https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Steering-scheme-of-a-road-train-obtained-by-a-trailer-k-with-one-steerable-axle-attached_fig1_311309756 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Steering-scheme-of-a-roa....

deleted 4y ago
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ducttapecrown 4y ago
For those of us who don't understand engineering diagrams^1, could you write a summary of how it works? ^1: These are probably called schematics or something...
- healthysurf 4y ago
  My total guess not based on the drawings - the wheels of the cars move with a certain delay as a reaction to its tow bar getting turned. I would assume this delay can be configured on a per-car basis because the cars farther back may require more compensation than the ones in the front. Although I am calling it a delay, I assume the mechanism is mechanical and there is probably a better word to describe the action where the wheels do not turn at the same time or with the same severity as the tow bar.
  - a9h74j 4y ago
    Wheel-steering or axle-steering perhaps? Some actual locomotives have linkages to consistently steer individual axles to match the overal curvature of the track.
- robocat 4y ago
  I did a quick Google. Play with some keywords, especially searching for images: drawbar steering-angle turntable dolly Ackerman train The usual design is to use mechanical linkages to steer the wheels, with varying levels of complexity that have different compromises. A complicated double Ackermann example (scroll down for plan view): https://planindustrie.de/en/products/industrial-heavy-duty-drawbar-trailer/ackermann-steering/type-60/ https://planindustrie.de/en/products/industrial-heavy-duty-d... and look at other products of theirs from the menu for simpler linkage examples. Academic papers are about the design of linkages and turning paths, with consideration for tyre slippage, obstacle avoidance, following, etcetera. The more mathematical papers use an idealised world on a flat surface (ignoring: surface tilts; terrain elevation changes/steps; slippery or soft surfaces especially if variable). Some modern systems use computer controlled power and steering to wheels to help avoid the errors in reality of idealised systems. It is a huge industry, but we need a https://ciechanow.ski/ https://ciechanow.ski/ type person to give us a nice model to play with.

niviksha 4y ago

Great read! Minor nit - shouldn't they be called 'road trains'? The other kind are also land trains, no?

izzydata 4y ago
I had the same thought. Not many water and air trains going around.
hammock 4y ago
Trackless train. Backcountry train
btbuildem 4y ago
"Road train" is a monicker for multi-trailer semis. These are quite common in Australia. In North America we sometimes see doubles, but I don't think they quite qualify for the name.
- ducttapecrown 4y ago
  Last year I drove up I5 and counted at least 20 triples!
  - tomcam 4y ago
    In Aus they can be up to 5 or 6, 120 wheelers. And I think they might be driven by kangaroos. I could be wrong about that part.
andylynch 4y ago
They are different from road trains- these were built to drive through untracked wilderness. Wikipedia calls them ‘overland trains’ Road trains were invented in Australia to haul livestock and general freight on their long, empty roads
- nomilk 4y ago
  For anyone interested in what a road train looks like: https://www.google.com/search?q=road+train+australia&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=road+train+australia&tbm=isc...

VLM 4y ago

Very small compared to coal draglines like "big muskie" Why make a mere train to eventually make a building, when you can make a large building that moves? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Muskie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Muskie Interesting to think that Big Muskie was significantly larger in all dimensions than the residence hall I lived in for my first year of university. One machine moved more material than two panama canals in its lifespan... Big Muskie was not a fast mover but it could have made that proverbial 400 mile trip in about 5 months, which isn't all that bad. I do believe it would have cost more overall, which is why they didn't do it this way. I would imagine trying to ford a river with Big Muskie would have been very exciting indeed.

LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
Still digging... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_293 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_293
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Different continent.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
    Same Planet.
Severian 4y ago
it wouldn't have made it, as it ran off of electric power. It trailed a huge electrical cable. Which makes sense as it was operated by American Electric Power. You can visit the bucket at Miners' Memorial Park where it's on top of a hill ( which I have to visit to get cell service when I camp nearby). It's the size of a small house.

jeffybefffy519 4y ago

Unrelated, but in the Netflix series Snowpiercer - I never understood why its not a vehicle like but is instead a huge train besides Wilford just liking trains?

oneoff786 4y ago
I haven’t watched the Netflix adaption but I think they were trying to suggest it’s a fixed loop with no driver. That felt thematically appropriate
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
is it the dumbest concept in all fiction?
- hanoz 4y ago
  No. That would be machines have taken over the world but thier only source of electicity is farms of dreaming humans.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Hilarious and appropriate but also poetic
- healthysurf 4y ago
  The dumber part of that world is that there was a separate train of very similar or identical design that managed to defeat the "can't stop for prolonged period of time" plot point using nothing but what was available on the train, and it was somehow able to do this only after the world ended and not before.
Fomite 4y ago
Because it's one of those classic "The story is about what happens when we accept the conceit of the setting" sci-fi approaches. It's a train, because there's exploration to be done around what happens on a journey that is both linear and fixed.

grendelt 4y ago

This sort of lore is drilled into the engineering students at LeTourneau University (my alma mater). There's an entire mini museum setup to LeTourneau's achievements on campus. After working there after grad school I realized much of LeTourneau's "genius" was some form of reductionism. problem: "We need a machine that can grab these logs from these trees we cut down." solution: "Why not make a gigantic claw and put it on wheels?" https://www.imcdb.org/i236846.jpg https://www.imcdb.org/i236846.jpg problem: "All these trees are in the way. We just need a way to quickly clear the area." solution: "Why not just stomp them down?" 'Stomp them down?' "Yeah" http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1964-tree-stomper-robert-g-letourneau-american/ http://cyberneticzoo.com/walking-machines/1964-tree-stomper-... problem: "Ok, RG. Some trees we can't just stomp" solution: "Ok. Let's just drive over them them." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9yvNESLPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9yvNESLPo There's this saying: "Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands." RG was never guilty of making anything "barely". Dude straight over over did it on a lot of projects. He took small simple machines and just scaled them tf up. He didn't do small. "You've got a big problem? You just need a bigger machine." is something that fits with what his machinery says about his design choices. He filled a niche for sure. His style and creations fit at a unique time in American history. American steel and manufacture was very much in it's heyday. He had access to all the stuff needed to execute his big ideas. His conservative religious fervor also fit the politics of the day, allowing him to link up with Billy Graham which had some factional differences of opinion from the likes of the overly conservative Bob Jones and Oral Roberts. Seeing large numbers of GIs returning from WW2 eager to work, RG put them to work building gargantuan creations. My personal, somewhat cynical take, is RG also saw that each of those veteran workers had GI Bill money sitting unused. He formed LeTourneau Technical College on the grounds of a shuttered military hospital to train employees at his factory a short walk from the campus. Being a "college" meant he could charge exactly the dollar limit amount of tuition the GI Bill afforded. Being a private college meant he could control what and how they studied. It remains a quite conservative Christian institution and students and faculty alike are reminded how it's a "ministry" until it comes time for a student who can't pay or an employee that asks for a raise. Suddenly the "ministry" facade shatters and the word "business" hops into the wording. As soon as the matter is closed, it returns to its "ministry" persona (esp when asked to do something above-and-beyond). RG is a fascinating character nevertheless. He's even listed in the Offshore Drilling Hall of Fame in Galveston (yep, it's a thing) for his work on Scorpion an offshore rig for the Zapata Oil Company, then run by a young businessman named George H. W. Bush.

dwighttk 4y ago

why does adding "land" to train mean there are no rails?

hanoz 4y ago
Because it replaces the implicit prefix "railway".
cortesoft 4y ago
Yeah, I would have gone with "trackless train"
- mcv 4y ago
  Off-road train.
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_carbyau_ 4y ago
Scope. The land train goes "anywhere on land" (clearly not anywhere but many/most places) as opposed to "anywhere on rails".
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Brilliant!

alamortsubite 4y ago

A YouTuber I follow recently put up a ~1 hour long documentary on the land trains [1]. It's well-researched and contains some interesting details not covered by the article. And if you enjoy that, be sure to check out his video on the Soviet Kharkovchanka Antarctic cruisers [2]. It's just as entertaining and what initially led me to his channel. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGyX2uwXsw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGyX2uwXsw [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6R-h06IsJw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6R-h06IsJw

ksajadi 4y ago

Interesting read but boy, does that website have ads of all kinds!

unnouinceput 4y ago
No ads for me though, but I use: https://i.postimg.cc/G3N3x4LQ/u-Block-Origins-plus-No-Script.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/G3N3x4LQ/u-Block-Origins-plus-No-Script...

divbzero 4y ago

Related: The US Army's earth-shaking, off-road land trains - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304788 - May 2020 (118 comments)

foxes 4y ago

To be honest this is slightly disturbing or eerie. It’s like a glimpse inside the minds of people from the era that set us on the trajectory of ruined car focused wasteland cities and climate destruction. It’s like art depicting capitalism and consumption. Simply scale everything up to solve all your problems! Just make everything bigger! Just consume more!

DocTomoe 4y ago

I feel we need a better name for something like that. "Land trains" invoke the idea of railways, and the first reaction would be "d'uh, many armies have dedicated rail lines, what's so special about this?"...

zeristor 4y ago

Whenever I hear of land trains I think of the SF novel series “The Amtrak Wars” from the eighties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amtrak_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amtrak_Wars Which I never got around to starting

GaryRowe 4y ago
Oh, it's definitely worth the read.