Snow Blowers on Steroids

[Bruce Wrenn]

For our snow loving friends, who hate blowing snow out of the drive, just think about the railroads. There are several you tube videos on railroads efforts to remove snow from trackage. Some use wedge plows, and others use rotary plow. The rotary plows can handle drifts over ten feet high, by ten feet wide in one pass. The forward motion is furnished by a couple 5000 HP diesels in one video. Ironically in this modern age, everything on the rotary, except the rotary, is steam operated. With it being steam operated, you don't have to worry about snow build up.

[Myk Rian]

Reading the title, I thought you meant something like this:

419770

I've watched lots of the railroad snow machines. Great stuff.

[Larry Frank]

I like it when they mount something like a jet engine on wheels to clear the tracks.

[Bruce Wrenn]

u
I like it when they mount something like a jet engine on wheels to clear the tracks.That's the reason UP never took 844 out of service. They used her to supply steam to melt open switches. CP uses jet engines not only to clear switches, but to melt snow build up off plows and other equipment.

[Ole Anderson]

Those big rotary snow blowers are amazing to watch. For those of you that like to see lots of snow being moved, check out this 2 hour 4k raw video of snow removal in Montreal: Apparently they don't like leaving it in their streets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQujcjTZEG8

[Lee Schierer]

Those big rotary snow blowers are amazing to watch. For those of you that like to see lots of snow being moved, check out this 2 hour 4k raw video of snow removal in Montreal: Apparently they don't like leaving it in their streets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQujcjTZEG8

Wow, that has to cost a lot of money to move snow at least three times. They should show a video of the mound of trash that is left behind in the spring when all that snow melts

[Frank Pratt]

I watched that video last winter. I bet it takes at least half the summer for that to all melt.

[Mark Blatter]

If you like interesting snow removal videos, check out this one. It is clearing Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park last year. That road is one I personally don't like to drive on because of how narrow it is, the drop down and the number of large campers / trailers that use it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfaBZV6wqVI

[Ronald Blue]

The rotary snow plow is driven by a traction motor. There is a dedicated locomotive for supplying the power generation for the rotary. An additional locomotive or two are used to push the rotary into the snow blocking the right of way. The jet snow blowers are used for clearing switches. While you can/could melt the snow away it works much better to blow it with the high velocity discharge. It's equipped with an adjustable discharge chute that can be rotated side to side and also down towards the rail. Even in wet snow it will move it if the thrust is dialed up.

[Bill Dufour]

Donner pass rotary plow in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjBQ3MaBYiU

And some jet blowers
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a19051/jet-engine-snow-blowers-demolish-snow/