Road train

A road train or land train is a trucking vehicle of a type used in rural and remote areas of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United States, to move freight efficiently. The term road train is mainly used in Australia. In the United States, the terms triples, turnpike doubles, and Rocky Mountain doubles are commonly used for longer combination vehicles (LCVs). A road train has a relatively normal tractor unit, but instead of towing one trailer or semi-trailer, it pulls two or more of them.

Early road trains consisted of traction engines pulling multiple wagons. The first identified road trains operated into South Australia's Flinders Ranges from the Port Augusta area in the mid 19th century, according to Basil Fuller in his book, The Ghan. They displaced bullock teams for the carriage of minerals to port and were, in turn, superseded by railways.

During the Crimean war a traction engine was used to pull multiple open trucks. By 1898 steam traction engine trains with up to four wagons were employed in military manoeuvres in England.

In 1900, John Fowler & Co. provided armoured road trains for use by the British forces in the Second Boer War.Lord Kitchener stated that he had around 45 steam road trains at his disposal.

There is an earlier road train built by its inventor in the United Kingdom. It is shown in the No. 320 (No. 8. Vol. 12, February 23, 1907) edition of The Auto Title: The Renard Road Train, page 242.

In the 1930s/40s, the government of South Australia operated an AEC 8×8 military truck to transport freight and supplies into the Northern Territory, replacing the Afghan camel trains that had been trekking through the deserts since the late 19th century. This truck pulled two or three 6 m (19 ft 8 in) Dyson four-axle self-tracking trailers. At 130 hp (97 kW), the AEC was grossly underpowered by today's standards, and drivers and offsiders (a partner or assistant) routinely froze in winter and sweltered in summer due to the truck's open cab design and the position of the engine radiator, with its 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) cooling fan, behind the seats.

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