Скачать или смотреть Railroad Rotary Snowplows: Train Vs Snow!

The first surveyors of the transcontinental railroad thought the snows could be handled with the equipment of the day. They planned to use “Bucker” snowplows almost 20-feet tall pushed by six to nine wood-burning locomotives.
This worked fine with fresh powder snow, but once the snow thickened to “Sierra Cement” the operation literally derailed. Still, the railroad used the Buckers as much as they could.

OPERATIONAL HEADACHES

These Leslie type rotary snowplows worked well until 1952 when over 20 feet of snow buried Donner Pass.
Even before the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad (now the Union Pacific), a program of building snow sheds was started to protect the railroad over the top 30 miles of the Sierra. These sheds and the Bucker snowplows kept the line open during most of the winter, but the snow sheds were beset with problems of fire and avalanches. And, while useful, the big snowplows were operational headaches.

In 1880, Charles McGlashan the editor of the Truckee Republican reported a harrowing adventure. The locomotive he was riding struck a Bucker snowplow. The editor was thrown onto the snow next to the tracks and only inches from the engine’s wheels. He survived and published his story in his newspaper. Even then, the railroads were looking for equipment superior to these large and unwieldy plows.

By the 1880s, manufacturers were developing more efficient methods of removing snow from the tracks. In 1887, Orange Jule and two Leslie brothers delivered a “rotary” snowplow with fan-type blades to cut through the snow and clear the tracks. The revolving fans of the Leslie rotaries proved themselves much better at removing Sierra snow than the competitive Cyclone and Excavator augur snowplows.

The Southern Pacific’s Chicago to San Francisco passenger train — the City of San Francisco was hit by a small avalanche that immobilized it just east of Yuba Gap.

Today the railroad uses a combination of the modernized Leslie rotaries, spreaders, and flangers. The youngest rotaries are over 80 years old. Their old steam boilers have been replaced with diesel generators and they have modern electronic controls. These rotaries are stored in Roseville and only used in snow years when the snow is particularly deep. The rotary’s problem is they cut deep trenches and sometimes the sides of the trenches collapse requiring another snow-plowing operation.

Spreaders solve the problem by being able to push the snow farther from the tracks than the rotary can. But, they are used in only shallower snow. The spreader is pushed by a locomotive. They are called spreaders because they have movable wings that can extend twenty feet on either side. The spreaders are stationed in Truckee throughout the winter and are the workhorses of the snow removal equipment.

Flangers supplement the work of the spreaders. They are also stationed in Truckee during the winter months. These caboose-like cars have a flanged plow that drops down to clear the snow from between the rails.
Jerry Blackwill is president of the Truckee Donner Railroad Society and board member of the Truckee History – Railroad Museum.

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