The railyard that is…of snow! As the weather is getting colder, and I am reminded of last year’s derailment at the local power plant caused by that severe February snow that piled it up heavily, I have to wonder what the railroads’ plans are for keeping yards clear of deep snow, and how they go about doing it (the equipment and methods used). What kinds are you guys aware of?
The most important thing is to keep switches clean: frog to rail and mechanisms that make it switch. After that, cars in the tracks usually keep snow from accumulating and by filling or using a track as soon as it is pulled will help, too. If the snow is any worse than that, probably nothing’s going anwhere nor coming in anyway, so just be sure the path to the coffee pot is clear.
They give me a broom and fusee and kick me out of the nice warm engine.
Ballast regulators with snowblower attachments, jet engine powered blowers, front loaders, people with brooms and shovels. Whatever it takes.
The conductor will just have to hold that fusee nice and close to keep warm. You should steal the engineer’s hot drink while you’re at it. You have to be in the cold, so you have an excuse to.
Biggest cause of derailments during Winter’s worst is derailing empty cars on road crossings when switching industrial areas…ice packed flangeways in the the crossing just walk the cars up and off the rail.
the maw #16 learned that lesson last year the hard way.
stay safe
Joe
If your management has the forethought and willingness to suspend operations for the duration of the snow event, pulling a cut of cars out on the ladder, goes a long way to protecting the ladder switches from snow buildup.
Nick
One less thing I have to worry about this winter–no more just hoping that the calrods are doing their thing and keeping the switches clear. If I didn’t have positive indications on my board and on the ground, I’d either keep throwing the switches until I got a good indication, and it was very scary when you’d lose the indication just before a car was going over the switch (gravity is hard to argue with, even when you have retarders to play with).
The tracks themselves are little bother as far as derailment worries. However, a rolling freight car is slowed down significantly–surprisingly so!–by snow on the rail, so cars stopping on our end of the yard was a problem. Letting the cars go a little faster is a possible solution, but only for the car “breaking” the track. Occasionally, with icy conditions, we’d have an engine shove a car down, rather than kick it, just to break the ice.
The snow-jet (now known around Proviso as Air Force One) was never our friend on the hump. It would clear out the switches and surrounding area in no time, but vapor would condense, then freeze, in the points. The calrods couldn’t handle it, and the first cars through often went on the ground.
I think it was during the blizzard of 1979 that the snow came down too quick
Yep… we did that the last several snowstorms last winter. Whaddya know, our managers have forethought!
The one snowstorm was very dry and powdery, so backpack blowers were used on the switches. They even had to call in contractors (hulchers, maybe?) To shovel out the end of the yard. Unfortunately, the machines just packed the snow that they didn’t scoop up, and made it very icy/slippery.