All this winter modelling talk plus Juby4life’s ROCK plow got me thinking…hmmmm. There is this sad looking 20 year old Athearn rotary plow in the junk box…let see what we can do…So I grabbed Maritime’s Shop Chief, told him what we needed and he went to town. First the crew stripped out the old steam plant and trucks. We had a F7 sitting on the dead line and decided to use the trucks for the plow, robbing the traction motors to power the blade. Then an aux diesel generator was installed for hotel power and motor cooling. We had an old E7 fuel tank that was cut down and installed for the diesel. The old roof walks were stripped away and fan mounted on the roof. New glass installed, as well as a horn, beacon, antenna, rear door & diaphram and a blade shroud for safety. Then he slapped a fresh coat of MW orange on it. We’ve got a F7B in the shop now that will provide the power to the plow. With any luck it should be out next week. So here she is…viola…
The Upper Midwest Transportation Company has been working on its own modernized rotary plow as well. Rather than install the prime mover directly into the plow the shops decided to strip the traction motors out of an F7B and use it to power the traction motors repurposed to spin the blades. This means another locomotive has to be put into service to pu***he plow, but management found that to be an acceptable proposition. These photographs were taken on some shakedown tests before the UMTC lettering was applied and the blades painted maintenance orange.
Bare plaster looks kinda like snow, doesn’t it?
Nice work. We’re on the same traction motor concept. The deisel in mine would only be fore internal power and to power the fn to cool the motors. I’ve got a B unit I’m working on to be the Prime mover power for the blades.
Dan