WAsn't there somebody asking about plows?

[Allen_from_CHT]

Fount this on Ebay tonite <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 18447">1.6" scale Snowplow item=3107918447</a>

[Bill_Gardei]

...Sure was. Thanks Allen. -- BG

[Bill_Gardei]

OK guys, hurry up with that plow.



BG

(test of inserting photo inline in UBB on new BBS).

[RoundHouseRat]

That is a nice looking plow. Never forget the look on the station agents face after shoveling the entire platform of his station onto the mainline. He was resting on his shovel admiring his work only to see us barreling down at him at 40mph with that style of plow on the point and threw it all back. He starting running for the door of the depot only to be six steps to slow. If looks would have killed, we would have been dead.

[themnax]

BG's picher reminds me of when we lived at norden and RHR's story reminds me of my dad working the extra board (as telegrapher/towerman/clerk (the clerk part didn't get added until much later when i was almost out of high school)) on the hill (donner summit) when i was startin grade school ... ~;)

[Dick_Morris]

Looks pretty much like a couple installed by members of the ALS (that's Alaska, not Adirondak). IIRC, both are made from 16 gauge steel. They start as a couple of pieces that were cut out, rolled, and welded together in the center. The original pattern was a piece of card stock. Apply the $100 dollars you save to buy a good portion of the lunch box welder that you use to weld it together.

From what I've heard about pilot plows on the Alaska Railroad, there was nothing scientic about the curves. The plows were bent until they looked right. IIRC, I heard that they would mount them on the locomotive and then pull on them with a chain while putting heat in the right place to encourage them to bend.

[Dick_Morris]

At least you could post a railroad photo. <BG> The center of the photo is the passenger loading area. The main comes from beneath the pedestrian bridge (at the left), then curves to the left. Behind the snow bank at the center it goes through a cut that runs from the center of the photo towards the upper left corner. The cut is about eight feet deep and on occasion the snow has drifted even with the top of the bank behind it. This tends to explain why we don't run in the winter and why a rotary wouldn't be very practical.

[themnax]

well i won't claim it to be practical in the present context but there's been and are places on this planet where if you scaled everything up in the same proportion to 56.5 inch gauge drifts - well maybe somewhere near close to that deep have had to be delt with. up on donner summit we had what we called snow sheds. used to be 80 miles of em. from below 'the gap' all the way over to truckee.
i gotta think about that a little bit though - ok 8*8' mmmm 64ft deep - i don't think we had that too often. though i've seen to where the sheds were only stickin up outa the drifts maybe a foot or two. and i seem to recall the they were something like 25 to 30 ft high.
i know up in canada and maybe sometimes over in the alps and a few other places it gets deeper n that - not sure about 64 feet virtical to the ground though.
did see it drop 8 feet of new fall in 8 hours one night - and that was a june the 2nd - (and btw that was in california in case anyone doesn't think it snows here - granted donner summit is just about 7000ft elevation - and it'll be snowing there and clear as a bell ten, 15 miles down the road - and if you go away in july or august you might mis both days of summer) - that was actual depth of fall not drifts or slides.
that's why all the houses had sheds connecting them togather (and had bridge timber fraiming and steep roofs covered with slipery aluminium roofing panels) and down to the office and up to the road ... ~;)

[Bill_Gardei]

...Well I ordered one of the plows directly from Bob, which
saves him the E-bay charges. Now he's only got one left,
so if anyone wants one, get it now. He even offered to paint
it for me. What a guy.

I know for sure that I couldn't build one for $100. Besides,
my welding looks like crap, especially if I tried to do it with
a lunchbox. The problem is, I don't weld often enough
to be any good at it.

Thanks Allen from CHT for the heads-up. -- Bill

[catalpa]

Back a few years, when Amtrak was still running E8's and E9's as they came from the various railroads, there was a short but exciting period as engines with the big "western" snowplows were coming east for the first time. The "eastern" roads had plows which weren't nearly as large. When a "western" plow meets the 3rd rail, it makes for some interesting railroading. We had a plywood template at Detroit and if the template didn't fit under the plow, we got the acetylene torch and made the plow fit... [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smile.gif"%20alt="[/img]

[Allen_from_CHT]

I wouldn't turn down a finder's fee [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/tongue.gif"%20alt="[/img]

Actually, just take your Mrs out for coffee with it [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/wink.gif"%20alt="[/img]

[Bill_Gardei]

Friends:

The snow plow has arrived. I haven't bolted it on yet.
Just took it out of the box. I wish I was retired so I
could put more time into this hobby. But that's the
way it goes.



Bill