With the next storm due to hit Wedensday one has to wonder if there will be need for them. I have limited local knowledge of the many cuts here in the east that may drift. Do any of you know of any vulnerable locations? I can think that the Sandpatch route may have a lot of blown snow since no trains have gone through tere in a few days. Of course the regular plows and use of local contractors with front loaders is the option of choice.
The biggest problem will be the logistics of borrowing them from the western roads. They might also need to plow through a few places on the way east.
I was told that the N&W borrowed a rotary in the late 40s or eary 50s to plow the West Jefferson branch when that area had a 4 ft snow and many drifts. They had to plow it for relief trains to get supplies to snowed in residents.Can anyone confirm?’ (may have been brought east by SOU to Bristol, VA but all tales were 2nd or 3rd hand)
Any of you out west near rotarys have any disappeared?
Rotary snow plows are impressive but they are an expensive way to remove snow. They are also quite rare and I doubt that there are much more than 10 available for service. Even on Donner Pass, they are brought out only as a last resort and definitely not for the amount of snow that the Mid-Atlantic states have had. They also make a narrow cut which fills quickly when drifting occurs. Wedge plows and Jordan spreaders are probably a better method of snow removal.
I’m not sure that any of the eastern railroads ever owned a rotary plow. I’m sure that if they borrowed one from a western railroad, the news would get out pretty quickly. Just about every railroad had a number of Russell wedge plows, and Jordan spreaders were strong, effective tools to use in clearing cuts, etc.
Interesting question - I was wondering that, too. But likely only when ‘Heck’ freezes over ! ? !
I can think of a number of cuts that would be vulnerable - esp. at tunnel entrances/ exits - but a lot of that would depend on the nature of the snow - wet or powdery, etc. - and the specific wind directions at the time. One cut in particular is a former tunnel - the ‘Gwynedd Tunnel’ - that was ‘daylighted’ on the Reading Railroad’s Bethlehem Branch about 20 miles north of Philadelphia, about 5 miles south of Lansdale, between Gwynedd Valley and North Wales, just north of its overpass over US Route 202 - the cut is about 1/2 mile long. Normally it sees only SEPTA commuter trains during the day - though some of which may be the Bombardier AEM-7 and coaches ‘push-pull’ sets; the CSX freights usually come up the Stoney Creek Branch instead.
A lot - but not all - of the heavy snowfall has been and will be in the coastal plain areas, which are generally east of the Delaware River, and generally don’t have too many deep or long cuts - it’s mostly sandy soil. But there have been some heavy snowfalls roughly along the axis from Baltimore-Washington, D.C. out towards Pittsburgh, which as noted has its share of mountains, and hence cuts and grades. But some of that - again, not all - has been ‘wetter’ snow, which doesn’t drift near as much. It’s the dry powdery stuff instead
I have lived in Shelby, MT for fifteen years and never seen a rotary at work. BNSF has one in Havre, MT (100-miles to the east), still lettered BN, and I have only seen a Jordan spreader here once. Most of our snow comes in a ‘ground blizzard’ (horizontal) and it doesn’t touch ground until it hits Wyoming! Our loss! Rotarys, in the crowded east, would be a “tort lawyer’s” delight. They would pick up the discarded shopping carts, tires, baby carriages, frozen bodies, etc., that somehow manage to land on the railroad tracks, and throw them on unsuspecting denizens of the more populated areas. Instant lawsuit! Don’t hold your breath!
The Long Island RR definitely owned a rotary plow - I’ve seen it referenced in several arenas.
While the 2-3 feet that the mid-Atlantic got was certainly significant, it’s well within the capabilities of the Jordan spreaders and other push plows that do proliferate in the east.
I can’t say if the Canadian railways stationed any rotaries in the east, but the Montreal Transportation Commission had five rotary snowplows on their streetcar system. As well as the usual street running there were also several routes that had significant lengths of private right-of-way, and I assume this was where they were mostly used. One has been preserved, reported to be at the Shore Line Trolley museum in East Haven, Connecticut.
As mentioned elsewhere, One or two western rotaries did come east to help dig out after a particularly heavy series of snowstorms in the late 1970s.
There was an ex-NYC rotary at Buffalo that lasted until at least PC days and maybe into Conrail. I photographed it there a couple of times but never in use. Trains ran an article in the Jan. 87 issue and I think there was a roster of active rotaries with it.
Trains also ran a picture of this at work in their news photos in the 70s with the caption clearly identifying it as an ex NYC rotary.
As far as I’m aware, it still exists. It was built in 1889 for the NYC&HR by Cooke as their number X-659. Retained that number under NYC ownership. I’m not sure what number it carried when it served PC, but it carried 60021 for CR and then 64599. It was converted from steam in 1951 and gets its power from a slug mother. Was last overhauled in 1978 and was used by Conrail during the winter of 93/94. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that CSX inherited it and it remains stationed in the Buffalo area to deal with lake effect snow as needed every decade or so.
Conrail also had a self propelled snowblower plow imported from Germany that was built as a diesel and numbered as SB1000. Was stationed in Buffalo and might still be there, was used I believe to clear yard tracks.
Edit - The old NYC rotary is now owned by the Buffalo Southern. It appears the German built plow I mentioned remains in Buffalo.
Rotaries on the MTC streetcar lines? Wow! I’ll look at SLTM’s web-site for a picture. That would have been fun to watch! How far could they throw a ‘Molson’ bottle? I have seen pictures of rotary brooms/sweepers on trolley lines, but never saw one in service. We lived in California for two years and I missed the big blizzard of '48 in New York. That would have been cool! Wonder what’s going on on the streets of Washington, DC today. Are they shooting each other, like they do in Chicago, over parking spaces?
IIRC, that rotary was operated at least once during the 90’s and their are pictures of it (parked) from the late Conrail era. Conrail also had a modern,German built Bielhack (a very large, purpose built piece of equipment rather than a smaller high -rail snowblower)rotary which I imagine either CSX or NS got in the takeover…
The Long Island RR did indeed own a rotary snow plow. It still exists and is on display at Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA. The ironic thing about steam rotary snowplows is the fact that while common out west, they were designed and built in the east by Leslie Bros of Paterson, NJ, yet were rarely ordered by an eastern railroad.
Actually, what we refer to as a Leslie was designed by a Canadian dentist, and improved upon by a fellow named Orange Jull (also Canadian). He sold his patent to the Leslies, who had ALCo build the plows, IIRC. Others also built them.
One of the main reasons I believe you won’t see rotarys come East is the nature of the beast. They are capable of throwing snow, as well as hard packed snow and ice a good distance from the tracks. The railroad would most likely be responsible for any damage done by debris thrown by a rotary, and with the crowded areas of the Northeast, can you imagine the lawsuits.
SP only brought out the rotary plows under the most extreme conditions such as avalanches or the total blockage of the tracks due to extremely heavy snow and the trains, jorden spreaders and flangers can not keep the line open. All the lead unit locomotives that I saw had a snow plow and they moved over the hill at a good clip throwing snow as they went.
