LeTourneau

How This Radical Scraper Changed Earthmoving Forever
Heavy Machines Era

I remember reading something about LeTourneau a long while back. It was all about how he was using electric motors to drive the wheels on his machines. There was a diesel engine driving a generator which provided electrical power to the motors (obviously). And it was presented as something really great and wonderful, but it never explained what was so great and wonderful about it. Many years later I was looking diesel locomotives and I suddenly realized, or somebody told me, that the whole reason for using electric motors on the drive wheels is because you can get full torque from the motor at zero RPM. Imagine if you had a conventional manual clutch and transmission like you would have in a semi-truck, installed in a locomotive. Now you try and start from a dead stop and you have to slip the clutch a bit to get the train rolling. Yeah, the clutch will be on fire before the train even thinks about moving. A conventional clutch is not going to work. So, electric motors. Now LeTourneau's idea makes sense. And now we have a video about the history of the company and I have an excuse to tell my story.