Shouldn’t this Engineer at some point stop the train and clear the windshield after this encounter with a snow drift? Just curious.
Don’t know about the engineer, but that railfan’s got a facefull to deal with!
There was a little windshield still showing - about as big a viewing area as the front window on a steam locomotive cab…
They do have windshield wipers that coupled with the wind of the forward motion of the train can probably clear a ‘viewing port’. It isn’t like they have to figure out where the next intersection is so that they can turn left!
It’s possible that they did stop once they were clear of the major drifts.
Considering that the snow was probably packed on the windshield, I’m not sure the wipers would make a difference. Of course, the glass itself is probably heated, which would help.
It’s no different than running in fog.
Raise your hand if you didn’t see that one coming.[:-^]
Wabash1 would not stop his train just to clean off a little snow. He knows the territory.
At some point I’m sure he will. He’s probably thought of that and picked a place that makes sense.
And you’re saying the Canadian guys don’t?
No. I am just saying that if can run in fog without seeing anything, you ought to be able to run with your windshield covered with snow.
Maybe he had his head out the side window. [;)]
The possibility that you forgot the [sarchasm] tag aside, there’s a world of difference. You might drive your car on a foggy day, but you wouldn’t consider it with a sheet over the windshield. Although here in the north country, people seem to think it’s OK to scrape off a small amount of snow/frost off the windshield and drive like that.
I’ve run in heavy snow - reduced speed, but you can still pick out landmarks.
And it’s possible the engineer was running with his head out the window, when the snow wasn’t flying big time.
You’ll note in many of those snowplowing videos that you can hear someone on the ground at the crossing advising the crew by radio of what’s ahead…
just keep running and send the conductor out the front door to clear the windshield as you run along !
I am talking about fog that is like a sheet over the windshield. Not being able to see is my point of bringing up fog.
Ironically easier to do on a spartan cab than the more modern safer North American cab.
And the next snow drift makes a pancake of the Conductor [tdn] and fills the cab with snow because he left the door open. [oops]
I’ve run in a lot of fog and a lot of snow and the only thing I ever recall stopping for is to scrape ice off the window, when the heaters were so ineffective that it was not providing anything in the way of window defrost.
That was way too cool. Trains playing in the snow…fun times.
Actually, I quite agree with the idea that the engineer should have exercised better judgement. He cannot see the crossings or anything else for that matter. MOW should have cleared that mess along with DOT at the crossing. That’s allot of snow flying up and every where else.
You see, if someone dies…everything stops. People then ask why wasn’t something done.