There is no way a locomotive can drive itself along a road. It's wheels are too sharp and would simply carve thick grooves into the tarmac. The locomotive, however, does not care what humans think, and drives on the road anyway

That town is a well-oiled machine all working together in a pinch. You got the locomotive guys, the crane operator geniuses and all the electrical whizzes to plug the damn thing in All working together to make it happen.

American truck drivers: we drive the biggest vehicles on the roads

Not sure what I'm more impressed by. The fact a diesel can power a town. Or the fact a diesel can DRIVE ON THE DAMN ROAD.

As someone who who works for my states department of transportation, as soon you mentioned the locomotive being driven down the road, I winced inside knowing what a vehicle weighing that much was doing to the road surface and the repairs to the roadway that it would entail. 18 wheelers are already hard enough on road surfaces. A full blown diesel locomotive? I can hear the pavement crying

I'm honestly blow away they were able to drive it down the road. I would think that without the tracks to guide it the trucks would rotate uncontrollably, but I guess not.

I retired from a local electric company and we had many "peaking" units that were GM diesel power plants. basically a train with no wheels. Even said on cowling GM diesel locomotive.

"Where I'm going, I don't need rails. MY COUNTRY NEEDS ME!"

That storm wasn just in Boucherville, most people in Quebec did experienced this storm. 15 to 30 days without electricity. People with fireplace invited family members to there home to avoid freezing death. All the high voltage lines failed like a a house of cards with the ice storm. The train idea was great and I was also speechless to see it moving on the road. Since then the Hydro power have been improved (even if this kind of storm would still do damages) with redundancy power lines

This often happened in the 70's in the US as well, various manufacturing plants would borrow a locomotive or two from the railroad that served them to provide power when there were issues with the power grid due to storms or whatnot. The railroads who were almost always in (or bordering on) bankruptcy at the time were happy to make some quick cash.

USS Lexington (CV-2) was used to supply power to Tacoma, Washington, in 1929. Bigger generators, but they weren't able to sail her down the road...

I was in Boucherville in 1998. That idea save the municipal office from darkness.

I'm just impressed they were able to drive a locomotive! On a road! With no rails!

The Alaska Railroad literally has a siding next to their HQ buildings specifically to roll a locomotive onto to run the facility if the power goes out. Some of their locomotives have equipment installed specifically to make this connection safe and easy to make.

It’s really crazy how the locomotive actually drove on the road & still successfully made it to the area where it needed to be plugged in to power the town. You’d think each of the bogies would often go in a different direction. So I bet they’d use a crane to help it straighten the bogies and help make it turn when it had to.