Michigan Cityans willing to drive 12 miles may get a glimpse of Commander Richard Byrd's lumbering snow cruiser as it is driven across country to Boston.
The route of the ungainly craft is over U. S. 6 to Walkerton, thence to U. S. 30 through Plymouth and Warsaw to Fort Wayne where the first overnight stop will be made.
U. S. 6 skirts the southern edge of Westville and can be reached by driving south 12 miles on Ind. 13.
Time Unannounced
There is one drawback for prospective Michigan City curious. No one has yet announced the time of the snow cruiser's overland journey. For some reason secrecy has surrounded the construction and preparation of the craft.
At first it was planned to bring the snow cruiser to some point near Michigan City for testing on Indiana's sand dunes -- the nearest available terrain sufficiently similar to antarctic conditions. Later it was reported unofficially that the tests had been called off, that the cruiser would be "shaken down" on its trip to Boston.
Unofficially, too, it was reported the cruiser is due to be inspected at the Pullman-Standard Car Mfg. Co. plant in Pullman, Ill., today, that it may begin its trip Saturday or Sunday if accepted by the Research Foundation of the Armour Institute of Technology which is building it for the U. S. Antarctic Expedition.
Police to Help
Untimately Indiana state police will be notified when the cruiser is coming, for they must block off highways along the route to completely halt or sidetrack other traffic. The cruiser is so big that it takes up most of a normal, two-land highway.
Roads along the route have been carefully chosen for width and lack of bridges or underpasses. The cruiser will average 20 miles an hour, 10 miles under top speed. It will travel only by day because of traffic risks, but once in the Antarctic, day and night will all be one, for she carries her own generating plant for lights, her own machine shop for repairs and her own winch and dragline to pull herself out of any crevasse or pit from which her own wheel-power is unable to move her.
HERE COMES AN ANTARCTIC CRUISER
The snow cruiser built in Chicago for the U. S. Antarctic Expedition, dwarfs the men beside it. One of its 10-foot, half- ton wheels is shown.
WILL TAKE THIS ROUTE
Lumbering over these roads, the snow cruiser built by the Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago for the United States Antarctic Expedition, will go through its "breakdown tests" on this route to Boston.
