Who knew that the rotary snow plow was a Canadian invention? I didn’t. It only makes sense since Canada is the land of ice and snow.
I posted about this unique Canadian invention on my blog. Bonus fun fact: It was invented by a dentist and brought into production by a man named Orange.
Impressive!
Thanks for sharing,
Richard
Fun! A teriffic video. I got an old Athearn for my grandson’s layout but the rubber bands were past useable. The real thing is designed better, an impressive machine.
Dr. Elliott invented a rotary snowplow that looked rather like a large dental burr (!) He contracted to have his design built by Mr. Orange Jull, who, in turn, contracted with the Leslie Brothers (Toronto, Ontario) to build a full size prototype, which proved successful but had issues. Jull, in turn, assigned the rights to the Leslie Brothers.
The Leslie Brothers, dissatisfied with the giant dental burr, moved to Paterson, NJ, USA, and formed the Rotary Steam Shovel Company. They obtained a patent for the, ‘Looks like a tunnel boring machine,’ rotary that we think of as THE rotary snow plow.
Much more recently, there have been some snow movers based on the type used to clear highways - horizontal augers feed snow to the center, where a rather small centrifugal blower tosses it away from the right-of-way.
If you Google Rotary snow plow history, the first picture shown is the Elliott/Jull slant tapered auger. The other three are Leslies…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with wedge plows)