Clearing Snow on the BNSF

J

JCitron

Trainzing since 12-2003
Here's some pictures of the BNSF bucking snow. A friend of my brothers sent these to him. Here's the quote from his email to my brother.

"These photos were taken on the Bellwood Subdivision, between Seward and David City, Nebraska on the BNSF RR, my employer. Seward is about 25 miles west of Lincoln, on the Ravenna Sub. A few blizzards and sub zero temperatures coupled with moderate winds made for a beautiful, but, flash frozen environment. A freight train was snowed in at David City and a rotary snow plow was sent to clear the track of drifts that varied from 6ft or less up to 12ft in spots!! The photos were taken on Jan. 8th through Jan. 10th."

Way cool, but a dangerous job! Up here in New England, we have big wedge plows because we don't get snow that's quite as deep as this, or as I should say usually as deep as this.



http://img341.imageshack.us/i/bnsfthemeetwhileclearin.jpg/
http://img710.imageshack.us/i/bnsfthemeetwhileclearin.jpg/
http://img513.imageshack.us/i/bnsfthemeetwhileclearin.jpg/
http://img4.imageshack.us/i/bnsftheendofthesnowtrai.jpg/

http://img407.imageshack.us/i/bnsftherotarysnowtrain.jpg/
http://img442.imageshack.us/i/bnsfrotaryplowatwork.jpg/
http://img200.imageshack.us/i/bnsfrotaryplow.jpg/
http://img249.imageshack.us/i/bnsfstandingonsnowbank.jpg/
http://img407.imageshack.us/i/bnsftherotarysnowtrain.jpg/
 
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Snowpocolypse...Snowmageddon

Snowpocolypse.jpg


I bet it is nice and toasty warm in Austrailia ?

NS has been having quite a problems getting trains over the Pittsburgh line lately. Two virtually back to back storms, one 27"+ , and this present storm is expected to be 12"+ or much, much more. The flanger is out on the mainline !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpxiCxO5k0g <----Fire this Guy...lol
 
cascaderailroad said:
I bet it is nice and toasty warm in Austrailia?
Click to expand...
That would probably depend. Few weeks ago, snow(1) in mid-January (yes I did say January), heatwave & floods & a cyclone - all at or near the same time!

1. The state that had snow, had one of the hottest temperatures recorded the week before hand. In 1994 (I think) a day or so before 25th December, I believe the snowfields got down to minus 24 degrees - celsius that is. :cool:
 
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I found this on you tube and I thought this was amazing, in Britain the height of the snowline shown on the video would of brought us to a standstill, but in the states nothing stops those mighty powerful locomotives.

Hope you find this as amazing as I did...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCqEBdjaXpM

Joe Airtime
 
I just thought of a better way to get the bigger picture of how to see what weather is comming to the US. I set my weather home to Austrailia, Phillipines, and Hawaii...and guess what ?
Another huge Low is comming across Mexico and into Texas. It's all Austrailia's fault. Phila has been at a blizzard standstill all day, and is totally shut down tonight with an additional 2' of snow, on top of 17", and the Pa National Guard has closed all major roads so the Penndot plow trains can clear the interstates. Most NE US RR's will be crippled for at least one more day.
 
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cascaderailroad said:
I just thought of a better way to get the bigger picture of how to see what weather is comming to the US. I set my weather home to Austrailia, Phillipines, and Hawaii...and guess what ?
Another huge Low is comming across Mexico and into Texas. It's all Austrailia's fault. Phila has been at a blizzard standstill all day, and is totally shut down tonight with an additional 2' of snow, on top of 17", and the Pa National Guard has closed all major roads so the Penndot plow trains can clear the interstates. Most NE US RR's will be crippled for at least one more day.
Click to expand...

This might be even more helpful.

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/

We use this when storm chasing to see what the various weather forcasting organizations have to say along with NOAA SPC Convective Outlooks, and other weather forcasting tools that I don't have access to because they cost way too much to buy.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/

I can well imagine the Keystone State being socked in there with the snow. We got nothing and I mean absolutely nothing! They closed UMASS at noon today, everyone was sent home. The state closed all government buildings in Boston and south, companies closed, schools were closed, and nothing came. This one was a dud for us, but at least we were prepared for it. In the past, I've sat in traffic for hours trying to get home because no one expected the storm to come.

John
 
Does the rotary snow plow have any locomotive power of its own, or is it entirely dependent on the coupled locomotives for its motive power?

Thanks,
Ian
 
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