The Freight Train: Allis Chalmers 7080

Wait…what??? Allis made tractors and stuff…not trains!

I’ll get to it. There’s a tie-in here. Stick with me, please.

The Allis Chalmers 7080 was the flagship of the 7000 series line, and the biggest 2WD tractor they’d ever built. It was a big orange boss, and everything on it was built for business. The engineers installed an intercooler on the turbocharged 426 and cranked the horsepower up to 210. In fact, I think the 7080 was the first 2WD tractor to break the 200-horsepower mark.

Now, that said, most of the guys I know with 426 experience say that the motor is a little sketchy when you run it hard for extended periods of time. One guy I know even goes as far as recommending that owners detune them a bit for longevity. Still…even detuned, a 7080 will make a heck of a hay baling tractor!

This particular Allis Chalmers 7080 lives in Kansas for now. Personally, I think this would make a nice 4H/FFA/YF project for some high school kid to restore. Evidently, it’s spent a few nights under the stars, and it has some pump issues. Whomever picks this one up will have some work to do, but when finished it’ll be a pretty solid workhorse!

Finally, the reference to a freight train in the title is a throwback to some of the marketing surrounding this tractor’s release. Back in the mid-70s, Allis hooked one of these to a string of Union Pacific 30 rail cars and a caboose, weighing in at over 900 tons! Nobody knew whether the 7080 could yank ’em down the tracks, but sure enough, it did! Carl Stevens drove the big orange locomotive and even got the tractor into 3rd gear! (He also told an Allis dealer, “The seat of that tractor developed a permanent pucker when we tried to stop that string of rail cars!”)??

Want to see the TV commercial that Allis Chalmers released with the train? Watch it here.

Looking for more Allis Chalmers? Start your search here.