Good evening how are we all doing fine and dandy any who. I got to see the biggest snow blower that the city of Milwaukee has it was attached to a front end loader in fact it was so heavy that it had to have a counter weight on the back of the truck also it ran off of it’s own diesel engine. It was so big that i got scared when I saw it coming down the street towards me. Trust me I wouldn’t want to be in front of this thing when it’s running. My question is how far does thing shoot snow although i did see a couple of dump trucks lined up to go to work with this monster of a machine. It did the job though cause where it was it cleared it like there was never no snow. But the forecast is going to change again cause according to the weather people they are predicting more snow for sunday any where between 6 and 10 inches yuck yuck yuck. I beginning to really hate winter weather I hate everything about it. But i did read in the trains news wire today that some of the local railroads pulled out the big boys to start clearing tracks of all of the white stuff.
Big snowblowers are a fact of life in big snow country. Airports use them on a regular basis as they will throw snow a considerable distance off the runway (100’ isn’t a bad number to work with).
Cities often use them in the manner you apparently saw - blowing the snow into dump trucks for disposal elsewhere. It’s faster than using a bucket loader.
This site has some pictures of some truck mounted types in action.
This is one manufacturer of such blowers.
…Those are great pictures showing clearing of the mountain pass.
Truck mounted blowers are not new. Saw Pennsylvania Highway Dept…operate such type of equipment back in the early 1940’s on the Lincoln Highway {rt. 30}, thru our home area. An engine to power the blower and of course the truck engine to handle the truck. Of course they were 4-wheel drive too. Walter Snow Fighter was one brand of vehicle back in that era and Federal was another…Not all with blowers but many with massive “V” plows. Saw them plow snow up past my home at the edge of town where the grade was 13% heading out of town into the country and they would stop at the start of the grade and gear it down and plow up that grade with sometimes several feet of snow that driffted across. The grade was steep and passed over an overpass bridge for rt. 30.
It was not a long grade and it made a very good place to sledride before the trucks would eventually come thru and “ash” the road.
In college, I worked at an airport. We had a monster snow blower on the front of a Fiat-Allis front end loader. The employees called it “Fat Alice”.
Tell you what, the snow blowers here in Wyoming have been fighting a losing battle for about 3 weeks striaght. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They got the upperhand until yesterday. we got dumped on big time… but that isn’t the problem they have. once it snows, the wind gets so horrible that it drifts across the road… We still got a couple months until the snow quits…
This is I-80 at Walcott Junction just east of Sinclair (Just past Rawlins) This is where the UP mainline and the old US 30 (Lincoln Highway) takes off and goes through, Hanna, Medicine Bow, Rock River, and Bosler before coming to Laramie. THe pic shuld update every few minutes… but sometimes its delayed… but there is a HUGE drift there…
Oshkosh makes some of the biggest snowblowers around, as well as many other things…
They make Snow Removal, Airport Fire vehicles, Military vehicles and Front discharge concrete mixers… They also own some subsidiaries, McNielus, whichmakes rear discharge concrete mixers, and Garbage trucks. Also, Pierce Firetrucks.
What does truck mounted snow blowers doing in this forum the world wonders
You could use it to clear off the semi-truck staging area in an intermodal yard. [8D]
Here is a link to a video of an Oshkosh Corp H-Series Truck mounted snowblower. That sucker is cool.
No problem - the occasional O/T never hurt anyone. Besides, I recall seeing some years ago an article about just such a unit that had been adapted for use on the Pikes Peak cog railway.
It does raise the question of why the railroads have not adopted such blowers. They can easily be built/adapted to handle anything a good old fashioned rotary can handle, and would be virtually COTR (commercial off-the-shelf) - a concept that’s being used on the genset switchers. The idea that a railroad could configure one as a hi-rail vehicle should make doing so even more attractive.
On top of that, there would be the possibility of blowing the snow into side-dump cars and hauling it to a suitable location (a remote high fill, for instance) for disposal. This would reduce problems with finding a place for the snow in a large yard. Putting the snow in hoppers and sending it south to melt only works if it’s warm down south…
…If we don’t stray any farther O/T than that, I suppose we’ll all survive from it…We have for quite a few years.
We could veer back on-topic as several of the major manufacturers of large truck and loader mounted snowblowers also build rail and hirail units…
Beilhack is one and I believe Sicard has built some as well…
To get back ON track [tup] WITHOUT ALL THE TITLE SHOUTING [:P]
Tasked to WI winter demands - a ballast groomer tackles an alliterative CaNoodle assignment. [:-,]
Kershaw plow CN 618-54 plumin’ & a pushin’ Plover powder.[4:-)]
The WSOR geese
summon gal pal Jordan to tackle some spreading ! [:O] [bow] [^]
Here is a big snowblower in action. It must be a couple thousand horsepower. Nice video.
…Now that really looks like a worthwhile railroad machine to be using in snowy Winter.
…Edit: Both the small machine and that rotary in the video, of course.
Years and years ago, TRAINS had a picture of a snowblower mounted on a good-sized (+/- 100 HP, from the look of it) John Deere tractor, being used to clear a RI branch or siding so a grain elevator could be switched.
On a similar note, the biggest mowing machine I ever saw was a rotary cutter mounted on the front of a log skidder being used to cut brush under a power line. This was east of Waycross, GA near the Okefenokee Swamp. For those who haven’t seen one, a log skidder is roughly equivalent to a large front-end loader in size. The skidder was used because of its large tires, designed for use in muddy, brushy areas. The area around Waycross is so wet and muddy a regular farm tractor would have sunk out of sight.
It just made me wonder why a hy-rail can not be outfitted to clear snow…It would just need some weight put in the back of it.
Phil
…I wonder if the drive wheels {tires}, could get enough traction to push thru any amount of snow with a plow. True the vehicle would also need more weight.
I believe some of the vehicle weight is supported by the flanged wheels.