Watch this Land Rover pull a TRAIN across a bridge... thanks to the power of a Wolverhampton engine

The four-cylinder 2.0 litre Ingenium diesel, built at the Jaguar Land Rover engine plant on the i54 site, was powering a Land Rover Discovery Sport fitted with special rail wheels for the feat.

The engine's power enabled the car to pull a train made up of three luxury carriages and weighing the same as a Boeing-757 passenger jet.

There was no tweaking over the Discovery Sport's drivetrain, gearbox and the engine itself was the unchanged from when it rolled off the production line at Wolverhampton.

The only modification was the fitting of rail wheels by British road-to-rail 4x4 conversion specialists Aquarius Railroad Technologies to act as 'stabilisers'.

[figure caption="An Ingenium diesel engine made in Wolverhampton enables a Land Rover Discovery Sport to pull a 108-tonne train across a bridge over the River Rhine" title="An Ingenium diesel engine made in Wolverhampton enables a Land Rover Discovery Sport to pull a 108-tonne train across a bridge over the River Rhine" align="center" url="/wpmvc/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/imgID22989959.jpg" alt="An Ingenium diesel engine made in Wolverhampton enables a Land Rover Discovery Sport to pull a 108-tonne train across a bridge over the River Rhine" id="1303041" size="100"

The train pull itself was a nod to Land Rover's heritage referencing the notable launch of the original Discovery 4x4 in 1989, when a converted Discovery towed a series of carriages in Plymouth

This time the feat involved a crossing of the River Rhine on the dramatic Hemishofen bridge, a historic steel span measuring 935 feet long and soaring 85 feet above the valley floor.

With the 180PS Ingenium diesel engine providing 430Nm of torque, the vehicle undertook a six mile journey whilst effectively pulling 58 times its own weight – 108 tonnes, more than 40 times its certified maximum towing weight of 2.5 tonnes.

The power on offer from the engine was complemented by Land Rover's towing and traction technologies including Terrain Response, Tow Assist, Tow Hitch Assist and All Terrain Progress Control – a semi-autonomous off-road driving system that automatically manages engine output and braking.

Karl Richards, lead engineer for stability control systems at Jaguar Land Rover, said: "Towing is in Land Rover's DNA, and Discovery Sport is no exception. Over the years, we have introduced game-changing towing technologies to take the stress out of towing for our customers. I've spent most of my career travelling to the most punishing parts of the world to test Land Rovers in gruelling conditions, yet this is the most extreme towing test I've ever done."

Aquarius Railroad Technologies' managing director James Platt, added: "For a vehicle of this size to pull a combined weight of more than 100 tonnes demonstrates real engineering integrity. No modifications were necessary to the drivetrain whatsoever and in tests the Discovery Sport generated more pull than our road-rail Defender, which is remarkable."