#711 

The winter roads just opened last week, a month late, because it was so warm. Last week, down South in Winnipeg, I had a Super B-Train crack the whip, on the ice, just ahead of us. I bet the driver was getting a bit nervous.😅 Best wishes from the far North.

Here in the west motor graders do the heavy plowing. Plow trucks are just for lightweight stuff. I should think in the South they might be able to call up enough motor graders to keep things moving for the rare times it does snow.

I remember after the Blizzard of 1993, City of Birmingham purchased a whole fleet of surplus Army Humvees for use in snow/ice. They never had a reason to use them & eventually sold them as scrap years later.

@@nspro931that fine & wonderful, but as said above; it doesn’t snow or ice up enough to justify purchasing a whole fleet to sit around eleven & a half months out of the year.

@@jamessimms415 I was talking about motor graders, they are used to grade county roads and on construction projects all over the world and all year round. The problem would be the logistics of rounding up operators with contracts and keeping them fueled and operators rested but the iron should be available.

@@nspro931 It's far cheaper and safer to just close down, I too live in north Alabama. The weather we just had is honestly a once in a 10-15 year thing, outside of that you might get a 1-2 day close down or delay. It just doesn't make sense to invest in trucks / plows / stock piles of sand and salt. Remember too that people up north will often have snow tires, and or years of driving on snow and ice. People here don't even know how to drive on wet streets, nor have snow blowers and equipment to even clear out the driveway / parking lot to even leave and get on a cleared street. Most people don't even own the clothing for the extreme cold we had, this is an area that rarely sees freezing temps. And only often at night for a handful of days out of the year. Just for some contrast the freezing weather broke on Monday here, granted we did creep over freezing on some days. And for the most part the roads were basically clear on Saturday. But here it's Thursday And we will almost hit 70 degrees, if not for the rain and overcast would almost need the AC. Literally a 60 degree temp swing in less then a week.

Sorry those are Yak Tracks.

El Nino

I was told that too.

The other thing was there is always dirt on the paved shoulder use it to get yourself to a safe place