This vehicle comes with a story...
Story Portion [Fiction]:
This is a relic of a distant past, long lost to the sands of time, from before the ocean swallowed up most of the world's land, and when ground vehicles were the easiest way to get around. Truly a wonderful period where ideas and concepts, no matter how strange, were given a chance to shine. However, logistical concerns forced this project to be shelved right before it was unveiled at a major showcase.
An unnamed, undocumented experiment built to fulfill a crazy, but somehow plausible sounding, concept; turn an old, slow and heavy tramcar into a road going vehicle.
After a large, six axled tramcar was chosen for the project, it was stripped of all that made it a tram. They replaced the heavy and slow purely electric drivetrain with the best diesel generator available, the train wheels with hydraulic suspension, and gave it the most powerful and complex climate control system ever designed for use in a ground vehicle.
When all was said and done, this 15 ton behemoth was the result. Tridem front and rear suspensions replaced the train wheels, over 100 meters of hoses and air ducts travel throughout the frame, delivering hot or cold air straight to where it's needed most.
Unfortunately, it wasn't even given an official designation or even a nickname before it was stuffed in an abandoned company warehouse. When it was rediscovered over 50 years later by demolition workers, the original builders were long gone. Miraculously, it's engine turned over and sputtered to life when the workers turned the key, but the road wheels and drivetrain were damaged beyond repair, so the beast without a name was scrapped where it was found, never to be seen again.
Or so the demolition workers had claimed, but the truth came out another decade later when it showed up in a foreign transportation museum that specialized in experimental one-off vehicles. There in that museum is where it rests to this day, given the nickname of "Trambus Maximus". It only gets taken out during the museum's biggest event of the year, where it's used as an employee break room. It's climate control system still out classes many commercial passenger vehicles to this day.
Vehicle Explanation:
The reason I built this was because I wanted to make a vehicle with a fully engine powered climate control system, where the AC dumped heat into the engine's coolant and the heaters absorbed heat from it. After that it was just a matter of making the vehicle's frame big enough to justify the engine bay, and this monstrosity was the result.
Two regular axles looked weird, and tandem axles didn't quite look right either. partway through I realized that it kinda looked like an oversized bus or train car, so I went with "tramcar converted into a bus" and added the tridem suspension front and back. This worked out surprisingly well, but I realized that this vehicle had grown beyond an experiment and was quite large, so I chose to create a story to go along with it instead of shelving it when I was done.
I'm not sure how well I managed to make it look aged, though I was at least able to make it look sort of like the original colours had faded away over the years that it was supposedly sitting.
Definition(s):
Tandem -> Two evenly spaced axles, used to distribute heavy loads while increasing overall stability. Often found on american heavy-duty trucks, tractor trailers, heavy equipment and some smaller trailers.
Tridem -> Similar to tandem axles, only with three evenly spaced axles instead of just two, less common than tandem axles, but is often found on larger bulk/dump trailers.