At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much to converting a pickup into a road-rail truck (or hi-rail truck, as they are often known)—just some steel wheels and a jacking mechanism, right? Turns out, the process is a little more complicated than that—and the impact on the pickup itself is not insignificant.
While all sorts of commercial vehicles are converted for rail service, pickup trucks are the most common. Hi-rail pickups are perfect for rail-inspection duty, as well as transporting track maintenance crews to on-rail work sites.
"The unique "Little Joe" electric locomotives were built by General Electric in 1946 to fill an order placed by the Soviet Railways to operate on a 3,300 volt, DC system. However, upon the order being completed relations had broken down between the United States and Russia (thus plunging us into the Cold War) and the locomotives had no place to go, with all 20 sitting at GE’s Erie, Pennsylvania plant awaiting purchase. The "Little Joes" derived their name from the Soviet Union’s ruler, Joseph Stalin originally being called Little Joe Stalin's locomotives and later shortened to just Little Joes. From a technical standpoint these motors carried a 2-D+D-2 wheel arrangement, were equipped with eight GE 750 motors, and operated on a 3,000 volt DC system (perfect for the Milwaukee Road) with a continuous rating of 5,500 horsepower! While geared rather low with a maximum speed of just 68 mph they produced 75,700 pounds of tractive effort and would prove to be perfect in stiff, mountainous territory."
"Today you can visit the Magellan at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum, in Miami. The train has nickel-steel armor and three-inch-thick bullet-resistant windows. The rear door alone tips the scales at 1,500 pounds (though this inconvenience is minimized by carefully balanced hinges). In total, the car weighs 142 tons—almost double the weight of the standard 80-ton Pullman car. By way of comparison, a modern M1 Abrams tank weighs 62 tons."
"When it was in service, the Magellan traveled with a fleet that included sleeping and office cars for White House staff, an Army medical car, and a communications car nicknamed “the crate.” The Presidential Limousine and Secret Service Cadillacs were brought along in a special garage car. Two locomotives were often required to drag this ensemble up steeper track grades. "
"The interior of the Magellan contains a Presidential Suite (two separate bedrooms for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt), two guest rooms, a conference room and an observation lounge. The rear platform was wired with a microphone and loudspeakers that came in handy during whistle-stop campaign speeches."
This is actually not surprising when you think about it. Most large engines are left running even when their power output is unneeded as they have long periods of time to start from a cold start. Most power plants take somewhere between quarter to half a day to get up to speed, some coal or nuclear plants take multiple days to reach speed. Cold starts are rough on engines, large engines take a lot of time to evenly heat the block and fully lubricate the engine before they can be loaded.