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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 8469657" data-attributes="member: 57383">Okay, where to begin.I'll put the cart before the horses and start with Pulling Power.The wagons which "weighed 7,800 lbs and could carry 10 tons (20,000 lbs)" referred to in the initial post are the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-mule_team" target="_blank">Twenty Mule Teams</a>" used to haul borax out of Death Valley, which had a total weight of 73,200 pounds fully loaded. That included 20 short tons of borax and a 1200 US gallons water tank - which is another 5 tons or so from the water alone.  The weight presumably includes all three wagons, the two 10-ton capacity borax wagons plus the water wagon.A bit of arithmetic and the 40,000 lb of borax in 15,600 lb or wagons plus 10,000 lb of water adds up to 65,600 lb. The 7,600 lb that's unaccounted for from the 73,200 lb total is presumably the water wagon plus all the chains and harnesses plus food and other supplies for the crew.Now the draught team is 18 mules plus 2 horses. Since they used horses with "great brute strength" presumably they were heavyweights bred for the task, so some kind of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_horse" target="_blank">draft horse</a> presumably.  Let's see, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule" target="_blank">mule</a> averages about 900 pounds, a heavy horse about 1,750 pounds or so, although particularly hefty ones weigh 2,000 or more.If we assume it's 1,900 pounds, that gives us a neat 20,000 pounds of equine hauling the thing.With a 73,200 lb load, that's a "Pulling Ratio" of 3.66 to one for that wagon train.The "Clydesdale horses and the Beer wagon" Khel refers to sounds like he's talking about the Budweiser Clydesdales.  Since they're basically a publicity stunt - one of those horses should be able to pull a wagon with the 243 boxes of bud I see in <a href="https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/back-view-anheuser-busch-clydesdales-pulling-a-beer-wagon-usa-sally-rockefeller.jpg" target="_blank">this picture</a>. Each of them's probably got 12 bottles which weigh, say a pound or two apiece? That's 2,916 to 5,832 lbs plus the wagon and two guys. Assuming there's actually bottles in those boxes!As for "two horses pulls three times as much as one horse" Khel mentioned, that <a href="https://horserookie.com/how-much-weight-can-a-horse-pull/" target="_blank">appears to be a thing</a>, so a pair of Clydes would pull it easily.Rummaging around the internet I've found multiple references to a "<a href="https://horserookie.com/how-much-weight-can-a-horse-pull/" target="_blank">rule of thumb</a>" as follows:Horses can typically pull about 1/10 of their body weight in “dead weight,” such as a plow or fallen log. If you add wheels to the load (e.g. put a log on a cart), an average horse can then pull 1.5 times its body weight over a longer distance. For shorter distances, this number may go up considerably—six times the horse’s body weight, or even more, depending on the breed.However, Draft horses are absurdly strong, the <a href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/stampede-heavy-horse-pull-by-the-numbers" target="_blank">Calgary Stampede heavy horse pull record</a> is a pair of horses weighing 5,475 lbs pulled 13,400 lbs of dead weight, over the ground. The pull is over loose free-flowing sand (judging by this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VC4_aR9UlaA" target="_blank">video</a>), which probably makes it easier.See <a href="https://modernfarmer.com/2015/12/how-much-can-a-horse-pull/" target="_blank">this article</a> on examples of their pulling power. Incidentally, that 1924 "Shire horse pulls 29 tons" claim was from Liverpool, so it'd be 2,240 lb UK tons (or "imperial tons") for 64,490 lbs in total, not 2,000 US short tons for the 58,000 lbs the article states.That said, without strong corroborating evidence I'd take that figure with a shire horse drawn wagonload of NaCl.It's worth emphasizing that the pulling ability varies greatly with the surface being moved across.  A good road or hard, flat ground obviously gives a much higher "Pulling Ratio" that pulling something over rough grounds, through thick mud or water, or up a slope. A wagon loaded to 4,000 pounds might easily be drawn by a single horse on a good road, but might need two to traverse a rough country lane at any speed or perhaps even four to haul across a broken wilderness.Also, the more spectacular weights obviously were only moved a short distance, and it would have considerably tired the horse.  The "1.5 times its body weight" rule appears to assume it's in it for the long haul (ahem), with at least this <a href="https://animalhow.com/horse-pull-capacity/" target="_blank">source</a> claiming it's for an 8-hour work day.</blockquote>

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