Land Rover Discovery Sport displayed its immense strength and towing capability by pulling a 108-ton train

A 108-ton train is probably the last thing you’d expect to see being pulled by a Land Rover Discovery Sport.

Yet that was exactly what Land Rover put its famous compact SUV through in a seriously ambitious towing demonstration in Switzerland.

The SUV hauled three luxury train carriages along 6.2 miles of railway track, reaching around eight mph in the process.

And incredibly, its drivetrain was left completely undamaged from the stunt.

The Land Rover Discovery Sport pulled 108 tons with ease

The Discovery Sport was faced with three luxury train carriages weighing a combined 108 tons – around 60 times the weight of the SUV itself.

To put that into perspective, the load was roughly equivalent to the weight of a Boeing 757 passenger jet.

The Discovery Sport has an official maximum towing capacity of just 2.5 tons.

So the 108-ton train was more than 40 times heavier than the Discovery Sport’s rated towing limit, but despite that enormous difference, the video showed the SUV getting the train moving with surprisingly little drama.

The driver used small amounts of throttle while monitoring the vehicle’s temperatures, which remained normal, and the Discovery Sport was traveling at approximately eight mph.

As the vehicle approached a bridge, the driver engaged All Terrain Progress Control.

The system was designed to automatically manage the engine output and braking at low speeds, allowing the driver to take his feet off the pedals while the Discovery Sport continued towing.

And there was still a rather enormous train attached to it.

The compact SUV was barely modified

The stunt took place on a railway line in northern Switzerland, with the Discovery Sport eventually pulling the full 108-ton load across the Hemishofen bridge.

The historic steel bridge measured 935 feet long and stood approximately 85 feet above the valley floor, making it a pretty spectacular location for the stunt.

But the Discovery Sport itself hadn’t undergone some wild mechanical transformation to make it possible.

Land Rover said the drivetrain, engine and axles remained unchanged.

The main modification came from British road-to-rail specialists Aquarius Railroad Technologies, which fitted additional rail wheels to the SUV, which acted as stabilizers and kept it running safely along the railway track.

The Discovery Sport also managed the feat without a low-range gearbox, instead relying on its nine-speed automatic transmission, Terrain Response technology and All Terrain Progress Control.

The stunt was actually a modern callback to Land Rover history.

In 1989, the original Discovery was used to tow railway carriages as part of a demonstration of its capabilities and the new 200Tdi diesel engine.

This time around, Land Rover went considerably bigger, putting a compact Discovery Sport in front of a 108-ton train and seeing what happened.

But don’t try this stunt on any train bridges near your house, folks!