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BIGGEST SNOW MACHINE EVER BUILT!
- Thread starter Lyndon
- Start date
In the early '90's I was doing some work on Alaska's North Slope and one of the guys I was dealing with had a VHS tape made of his dad's super 8 movie clips that he took when he worked on the land trains when they were hauling freight to the early warning sites for the Air Force in the 1950's.
They were pretty impressive, they had a bunch of D-8 Dozers or bigger run infront of them and mowed everything down and they followed in the wake of a frozen road after cleared, looked like a four lane highway until spring break up.
One of the Land Trains slid backwards down a hill and jackknifed and punched a hole in the fuel tank and burned.
They were pretty impressive in the video and hopefully it will surface again. I can't remember the guys name, but he lived in OR and worked on the Slope on rotations.
The amount of damage done then by today's "enviromentalist" standard's would freak them out after the land train went by... and one would never see the light of today in the standards that we have to abide by nowdays...
They were pretty impressive, they had a bunch of D-8 Dozers or bigger run infront of them and mowed everything down and they followed in the wake of a frozen road after cleared, looked like a four lane highway until spring break up.
One of the Land Trains slid backwards down a hill and jackknifed and punched a hole in the fuel tank and burned.
They were pretty impressive in the video and hopefully it will surface again. I can't remember the guys name, but he lived in OR and worked on the Slope on rotations.
The amount of damage done then by today's "enviromentalist" standard's would freak them out after the land train went by... and one would never see the light of today in the standards that we have to abide by nowdays...
Excellent!
Here is the second batch, the last one is the front car here in Alaska, seems a sad ending for something that did so much during the Cold War.... Can't imagine why they needed radar on them, I guess the terrian was so flat they could get lost as if at sea.... The Mountains on the North Slope are miles to the South of the Coastline....
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The ones located just North of Fairbanks towards Fox are sitting along the highway and you can look at them any time.
The one's off Badger Road to the South of Fairbanks are behind a fence parked next to it, but you can walk up to them and still look at them. Sometimes the gate is open with people there and you can ask to look at them up close.
I would love to buy one! I like the one at the bottom of thread #36 last picture. I happen to be friends with a certain Electrical engineer who tried to get one up and running years ago. I wonder if he (LYNDON) would be interested to try again?
If not I will be the talk of the town with my Lawn Art!
If not I will be the talk of the town with my Lawn Art! You can see the crawler from Gunsight road with the trailer behind. They are on private property and it is posted, but I have never had anyone say anything and I have never disturbed or disrupted anything on or around them.
When I was real young we used to stop and crawl all of over it on our way caribou hunting. Times have changed though.
When I was real young we used to stop and crawl all of over it on our way caribou hunting. Times have changed though.
In answer to Mike's query about "Getting one running", the one to get is the machine of "Old Pete". It has a complete locomotive, the generator in in good shape, and, if he is still alive, Pete has the complete service manuals! This would be a "Must " for any attempt to restore one of these things to operational status.
I managed to locate the locomotive on Google Earth, and one can readily pick out the Overland train.( it's in between the 2 surplus sites that have orange logo dot's,just to the west of Ft. Wainwright, which is just west of Fairbanks) It's pretty easy to locate Trac INC's place too, first go to their site, get the approcximate address (Look for trains in Background of photo's) Now look at the Google Earth Satellite picts for a triangular area that has a lot of ORANGE in it near some rail tracks, "Tucker Orange"! I was unable to post the Google picture? It might have some encription on it?
While I was poking around, found my old detachment on Eielson AFB. Just left of top-center, you'll see a little square of Thiokol orange. It's right where we used to keep our orange Spryte and blue Imp. Looks like it's sitting on the trailer. Could it be the same Spryte? Maybe. The Imp might even be there, just harder to see.
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Brain dead! Thanks for figguring out how to post the pic! Nice Job. I don't know what I was thinking. I used to live right off Badger Road, less than 2 miles from Pete's place.(K & K Recycling's yard on the Old Rich) Anyway you got the pic! There used to be several hundred Haglunds at Ft. Wainwright, can you post a picture of that?
So tell us the story about the Propane tank!
This is where Roughwoods and I were at when they were auctioning 140 of so of the rigs, didn't even come close on the bidding. It was suppose to be a sealed bid, but it was sealed "Until" the opening, then they went and took the highest bid and started a call auction on each unit, and we weren't there for the change or knew about it...
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Any machine that can be picked out from a sattellite photo (Post # 45) is BIG, REALLY BIG! Yeah, about the Hags, I worked for a man that purchased a bunch of them. I believe he paid about 6K @ for a dozen or so. Since new tracks cost alot I steered clear of them. After riding from Prudhoe to Northstar across mushy Sea Ice, Im Definately not interested in owning one! They are good machinery and all, and certainly one of the fastest machines available. So Mikey, think we can get some giant Matt Tracks for that LeTourneau Overland Train?
Now THAT would be cool!
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alaska741
New member
I heard from a friend last week that "pete" passed away. He has a daughter that lives in Idaho. I don't know what will happen to all of his great treasures now that he is gone.
I've been trying to figure out a way to get that land trian for a bit now. A buddy of mine actually talked to Pete's daughter this last summer and I'm trying to get her phone number from him. According to her they would fire up the power unit to make sure it still ran up until 2 years ago when it got to be too much for Pete to mess with. I'll be going up that way in a month or so and I'll try to get some pictures of his yard. Hopefully everything won't go to the scrap yard. This is a pic that my friend got of the landtrain, and I have access to a few more that he took.
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Where does she live in Idaho? Maybe I could help out?