Around Portola CA on 01/12/08
http://www.youtube/. com/watch? v=BV_XPxYTb- A
[:)]
Link doesn’t work!
Remove all the spaces and the extra slash after the word youtube.
Thanks for posting that link. I had never seen a working rotary (in person or on video). I actually didn’t know that the direction of rotation of the blades could be reversed and that it could shoot the snow out of either side. Actually makes sense to me now, because you wouldn’t want to be throwing the snow on other tracks or equipment when it goes through the yards.
Wonderful video.
Check out the railfan around 5:45. If there was a spike in that snow, he would have got spiked.
Big chunks of ice and hardened snow are in that spray from the rotary also. Watch some of the other videos listed in the adjacent window… the ones of ice falling off of towers and buildings. Bad place to be, in the line of fire ICE!
there are a few other good plow videos on youtube like a few from White Pass, Cumbres & Toltec (they used steam engines to push the plow!) and a few of UP
Are you serious? Just copy and paste then…
Copy and paste doesn’t work either unless you also remove the extra slash and two spaces embedded in error in the text.
Last year somebody posted a clip of a BNSF rotary working near Amarillo.
That C&T rotary isn’t just pushed by steam locos. The plow itself is steam powered. I got a close look at it in the Chama yard a few years back, and I wouldn’t want to be the fireman! The boiler backhead is right at the rear wall of the plow, so the firing has to be done from the tender deck, with just a thin canvas storm curtain for cover.
Chuck
[8D] Very Cool Thanks for sharing Larry
Somebody sent me Email saying the link did not work
Here is the link I used
For those who’s computers can’t handle youtube, are there any still photos?
Rotary snow plows are not self propelled. They have to be pushed.
Phil
That’s what he said…
Your welcome. Besides the kodachrome loco the other one is a unpatched SPRR. Pretty neat tandem [:)]
I thought that there are/were self propelled rotaries. I believe that there are some in Canada and a couple in the US. Were the big rotaries that the UP built in Omaha self propelled? I am talking about the huge silver beasts. I remember seeing the one at the National Museum of Transporatation near St Louis, and how impressive it was.
Edit: I just found video of the 80 series UP rotaries at work a couple of years ago, and it was being pushed by locomotives. I guess I answered my own question on that.
Translation of, “The plow itself is steam powered.” The rotary wheel is spun by a steam engine inside the carbody, steam supplied by a boiler inside the carbody. To make it move forward, there has to be a Mudhen Mike (or two… or three…) pushing on the plow’s tender. (Yes, the plow has a tender, with a modest-size firing deck between the water legs.)
Hope that clarifies everybody’s thinking.
Chuck
Video of steam powered roatery plow on Cumbres & Toltec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha59KFvCQUY
Some background info on the D&RGW steam roateries w/pictures