The US Army has developed a snow train to conquer the Arctic

The US military has spent so much money on development over the years. It had super-secret spy planeshe tried train dolphins for underwater warfare and even had the clever idea of the development of flying aircraft carriers. However, one of the best ideas might be this ridiculous snow train that was designed to conquer the Arctic.

The US military had several experimental craft in the works in the 1950s, chief among them a new type of road train that could carry enormous loads in places where roads were rough, rare, or non-existent. These experimental crafts it included the longest vehicle everan above ground train created for resupplying nuclear silos and this one, the LCC-1 Sno-Train.

Designed to perform in some of the most extreme environments around, the LCC-1 has been brought to us for the first time attention via the excellent YouTuber Calumwho has built a name for himself by uncovering some pretty impressive forgotten cars.

The LCC-1, which stands for Logistics Cargo Carrier Number One, was developed by the US military jointly with Texas heavy equipment manufacturer LeTourneau, Calum explained in a recent upload. It featured an enormous front engine that housed a heated area for its operators, as well as the 600 horsepower diesel engine it needed to tow big army stuff.

With that power unit, the Sno-Train could tow three trailer cars that could be stacked with a combined load of about 45 tons of military equipment. That’s pretty impressive traction, but not as impressive as the enormous wheels this thing was rolling on.

To better distribute its weight over the types of icy surfaces the Sno-Train was designed for, it ran on a set of custom Firestone tires that were huge, really huge. According to Overland Trainsthe vehicle used 120x48x68 Firestone tires, meaning they measured more than 10 feet tall and four feet wide. Those enormous wheels were perfect for the frozen wastes of Greenlandwhere the LCC-1 has been deployed by the US Army since 1956.

The LCC-1 is the third landing gear that Calum has explored on his channel, but he calls it the most successful of the period as it has really proven its worth in service over the years.

Era frequently used to carry loads at Camp Century, an arctic research base operated by the US until 1967. The Sno-Train also served in Alaska, where it was used to power the Canadian and US Early Warning Line network of radar detectors.

The massive machine was even said to have saved someone’s life during a storm, giving a child with appendicitis the only way to the hospital thanks to its rugged capabilities. That go-anywhere attitude also meant the Sno-train beckoned save another massive landing gear who were stranded in the Arctic in the early 1960s. What a machine.

All that off-road prowess wasn’t enough to keep the Sno-Train running, however, and it was decommissioned in 1962. Now, the remains of the Sno-Train can be found at Yukon Transportation Museum in Whitehorse, Yukon, where it survives alongside several of its trailers still complete with the original 10-foot tires. It’s quite a site.

A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.