And in those days we were NOT operating at a $30 Trillion dollar debt with $200 trillion in accrued liabilities . No we were OK waiting out driving to town and most were prepared for the next storm.
Now I know why my mother always announced: "Plow's Commin'!" My dad didn't go to work those days, but he knew that announcement meant he had to go shovel the end of the drive so he could go to work the next day. We also knew it meant back to school. If the plow came, we didn't get the next day off. I remember twice in my life when we got two snow days in a row, once when I was in high school and once when my kids were in grade school. We got 5' of snow that storm. The second day, our plow driver, came down the road like these guys. He plowed off up at the corner to the other end of the road. That was about 3 blocks. About a half hour later he came flying past the house. Took the snow about 15 minutes to settle from him going through. I asked how he knew he wasn't going to go off the road when the snow is that deep. He said, I have been at it 30 years. I know where the roads are. If I don't go 50-60 miles per hour, I can't get through it. It's why all of us plow the same routes!
It’s funny how times have changed in terms of closing schools. Here in KY, they close for anything. AC out, bad rain predicted, unusually cold, etc. All will close the schools now. I grew up in the 60’s and I can remember only once having the a]schools closed for weather.
Rumor has it that Charlie is still out there somewhere and that the county commissioner says he should be punching through to the main highway within the hour!
Back in the day those trucks had around 150 HP and those were the big ones , in WW2 1.5 tones 6 WD had about 115.00 HP . After the war there were major blizzards in the upper midwest in 1948 -1950 that the US military was called in for help and they came with tracked vehicals as well as transport aircraft to drop hay to the stranded livestock , the bulldozers not only cleared roads but went into the fields to cut paths for the livestock to get to the air dropped feed from the newly created USAF C 47 and C 46 transport aircraft ,at that time right after WW2 we had a lot more ability to react.
What's most important plowing is traction. Take a 1000 hp truck with 2 wheel drive and bald tires and it won't be able to plow. Now take a 140 hp Tacoma with 4 wheels and good rubber and it can plow all day
I remember seeing crews of 15+ men walking ahead of plows with shovels breaking up snow pack so plow could bust through. Also big Allis-Chalmers dozers going ahead of plows in the 50's & 60's. Seen pictures of my mother sledding off barn roofs in the 40's. Great video, thanks for posting.
I can't imagine the damage that does to a man's body. That man would have taken 100s of low speed impact collisions per day...multiply that for a 4mth season and 10+ seasons........and lets remember this is 1940s...so that means no seatbelt, no comfy seats, no sound proof cabins, no power steering or power breaks.
@@9ZERO6 yep now everyone has a complaint, no “heat” “seats aren’t comfortable” “I’m quitting cus I’m a little bitch who’s been giving everything” is what they ought to say nowadays
Sort of. They still have a few of these trucks out east, and you can find them for sale occasionally. Stuff was built different back then, now days things are built to a price point not a function. Walter and FWD trucks are massive, overbuilt, amazing pieces of equipment. I grew up in midwest, we have more old FWD then Walter over here. The front pumkin(differential) on an old FWD truck has got to be 18" diameter or better. These trucks had lower horsepower then new trucks, but they also had big gear reduction like a tractor and lower top speeds which is why they could move so much stuff.
Sounds like a good paying job, sorry it doesn't involve Tiktok or some "mocha frappe latte bullshit from Starbucks" and 12 safe spaces because the white snow hurt your feelings for being White.
When we had a snow day when i was in high school in the 60s i plowed with the towns Walter Snow Fighter.it had a big V plow and a double wing.What a beast.It got about 2 MPG but it could move some snow.They still use it on big storms.
@@gumby511 Does a chimpanzee have "true grit" because they use a rock to smash open a nut? Or the human who figured out how to make a nut-cracker? Nothing wrong with working smarter, not harder.
My grandfather bought an army surplus Half-track after WW2 and used it to plow his neighborhood in Ohio for about 20 years until it broke. Was just fun watching that thing push the snow.
@Al Fabeech Uh, that's not how any local government I've ever seen in Wisconsin works--these decisions and their financing are all local. Are you sure you're not just being a disingenuous idealogue?
This from the region I grew up and live. Turin is 40 min from where I live. The plows made at frink in Clayton ny. That has been closed for years. Great video never seen this footage before.
The farmers in my area were responsible for the roads back then. Usually someone in the neighborhood had a horse drawn road grader. After the big blizzard in 78, they used a Case 2670 four wheel drive tractor with a dozer blade to clear the snow for the milk truck. My dad cleared our road out after that storm with our John Deere backhoe. It was a mile out to the main road.
@@mrpoizun we had a big storm in 1977 too. I don't remember that one very much but I was old enough to remember the one in 1978. There was a snow drift up to the eve of our back porch.
I have heard the farmers in South Dakota talk about this. Their motivation for clearing the roads was to get the milk to the creamery before it went bad. Dozers were kept running 24 hours a day and men working in shifts to keep them going. The biggest barrier was getting fuel. In some cases they had to rely on horses and sleighs to haul fuel into the rural areas. Winter of 68 or 69 if I remember right.
As a retired plow driver,our trucks were like Cadillacs compared to the rigs these drivers used and our streets were gold compared to the roads these guys had to plow.The last 15 years I was there our trucks were automatics,no gears to shift and all your controls at your finger tips.We had it made compared to these guys.Those old V plows jarred your kidneys every time you made a hard stop pounding that snow/ice.Glad I didn’t have to do what those men had to do to clear snow.✌️👍
Great video thanks for sharing this video. My snow storm happened in 1978 I was eight years old and it took the county 4 days to get us plowed out, my uncle got stuck on the farm road and they barely went past his car and he almost didn’t have a car after that. My parents had to walk a mile to the farm to milk the cows and stayed at the farm until they got through the road! They had to milk the cows only to have to dump it down the drain because the milk truck couldn’t get to us. It’s happened twice in my 52 years so far. We had pancakes every morning because my uncle was single and could barely feed himself 😂😂😂 but we survived.
The blizzard of '78. I remember being off from school because of that. I was 9 years old. My grand parents live on a one lane road around a lake in Chelsea Michigan. They got trapped for 3 days. It was common that no one stayed at their home on that lake but my grandfather thought the storm wouldn't be so bad. After two days he called the city and asked, "when are you going to plow our road?" The reply he got was "We thought everyone vacated so if you hadn't called we weren't gonna plow it at all." Well, the next day (day 3) the plow crew came through and cleared the road just for them.
@@monty4336 Oh man that’s something else, I was 8 then so we’re pretty close in age, we live on a north and south running road so when it drifts we get nailed! Luckily we have equipment that can move the snow better than in 78’ so we can manage it better but we still get nailed down. Another thing I don’t understand is the people that just go driving around to see how bad it is? I’ve pulled many dudes having country cocktails and pulled them out.😒 Another story really quick in 68’ the Michigan National bank in Battle Creek got robbed on snowmobile and they never caught the guys because nobody could get around to catch them.😂😂 Happy new year stay well.
About 1965 I had the pleasure of seeing all of the freshly maintained snow equipment roll out of the Anchorage, Alaska facility...there must have been a mile of powered plows, graders and snowblowers. Was not unusual after/during a snow storm to see a flying wedge of huge snowblowers clearing the runways at Elmendorf AFB. Now, in Wisconsin, mostly I see those big bull plows clearing the roads. In Idaho Falls, they used a conveyor system to load from the plows directly to dump trucks. The innovations have been fun to see. One thing hasn't changed though...the need to shovel out your driveway after they pass by. BTW back in the day, many places had "one track" roads as shown at the start of the video, somebody had to give way for traffic to flow.
Those plow mounts and associated brackets must be hooked directly to the frame of the truck, the force of a 40,000 pound truck ramming snow like this must be insane!!!
After having a hard day with a spike in my lifelong MDD, and having to avoid RU-vid suggestions of even political stuff I agree with... being suggested and clicking on this old video is a breath of fresh air. 😊 ❤️ Thank you for sharing.
@@willythewave I was thinking about the massive snow storms they used to have in the old days. So... you know how they can do cloud seeding with tiny particles to make moisture condense and eventually fall to the ground. Well... I was wondering if the “dirtier” air of yesteryear had anything to do with those big snowstorms we had previously. The stories of big snow storms seemed to increase around the time of the industrial revolution. So... maybe all that particulate in the air caused bigger/more frequent storms. 🤔 the storms seemed to have decreased once we stopped burning so much wood and coal. 🤔 🤔 🤔
I worked at our local highway department during the blizzard of '77 in Western New York and we bucked plugged roads with an Oshkosh and v-plow with double wings just like this. I remember working two 80 hour weeks during the worst of it.
Its a little crazy to think this was pulled from a dumpster in 78. Makes you wonder what other really cool video tapes/reels are hiding in your neighborhood landfill
I just love seeing real history and seeing people's everyday lives. Unscripted as it took place. So fascinating. Brings a sense of connection to a by gone time.
Getting ready to go out and plow the drive with our side by side, thankfully we didn't get amounts of snow anywhere near as bad as these guys were busting out. The people that did it like this back in the day got us this far today.
And at the end of the season the drivers left leg muscles were larger than the right leg muscles from pushing in the clutch in and out a hundred million times. lol
Born in 1946 remember dad pulling snowplow into barn with tractor welding up plow or truck frame and sending them back down the road. We still do that in Michigan the trucks are bigger and the tractors. And today every farmer can weld like a pro.🤗🇺🇸🇨🇦
Fast forward to today. Snow still piles high. Plows are pretty much the same. The only improvement is we don’t use banjo music anymore in documentaries. And thank the Lord for that!
We used 6 wheel drive graders with chains and the snow drifts were over the hydro wires here in Sothern Ontario before the snowbelt moved 100 miles north.
I plowed with a 1950 FWD. You can take the jarring when you are young, Just make sure your hands are not in the steering wheel spokes or you were in for a injury when the wheel spun around.
I was living in the panhandle of West Virginia, up in the hills of Harpers ferry, when we got about 4 ft in 2001. Regular plows couldn't deal with it alone, we were snowed in for 4 or 5 days until they came by with a bulldozer in front of a plow truck in front of a grader, each one making a slightly wider path. Took me a full day to shovel the driveway before that and then another half day after they dumped more snow from the street on it LOL.
That is a good old video Ed...geez you know I can remember snow drifts similar and old plow would take most of the day to go about 1/2 mile and that was on #10 North of Mafeking.. then a good old Northwester would blow up and fill the sucker right back in again lol... thanks for the share.. will pass it around.. Jack
I love seeing content like this. Oh, and here I thought wing blades were a rather new technical achievement as we only started to see them around my area of the northeast about 15-20 years ago. LOL...
I remember when I was a kid, we lived between two hills. They would drift in bad. One winter after a bad storm, we heard the plow coming but, it sounded different. When we finally could see it, it wasn't the usual big Oshkosh truck with the V plow. it was two D8s with a V plow in front. The road has been reworked since so it doesn't get snowed in like that anymore.
Well besides the guy over in Germany trying to exterminate half the world...The world is probably more innocent today than it ever has been in history. I agree though that these sorts of videos make us nostalgic for a time that didn't really exist.
@@sarthurl9001 thats a real good point about germany. I often allow myself to get narrow minded when thinking about the past. Theres no good without bad, and there was a whole lot of bad back then. However can you elaborate on how you think the world is more innocent today? These technologies have allowed life to get so complex. Nearly the whole world has instant access to all the history of man. We know more each and everyday, less can be ignored. Innocence is diminishing rapidly in my opinion , talk to a 13 year old these days. Its a real shame what they have been exposed to on the web.
I quite literally can remember snow like this in the 1980's here in Nova Scotia, Canada where the D.O.T. would have to call in one of the 2 or 3 massive snowblowers in the province to get through to open the road and get the grader out of the snow drifts that was stuck.
Route 26 between Boonville and Turin I remember making the trip well many many times to go skiing at Snow Ridge, the snow was usually as high as the telephone wires every winter tug hill plateau common place
Thank you for the memories, I was part of the cdn military snow and ice control over a number of years on 12 hrs shifts. Long and hard especially during a multiple day storm. I’m glad we had the stuff they drive around to day. Only thing I didn’t like was when our crew chief decided to go on 8 hr shifts. Those really messed with our inner clocks. But all said I was particularly proud of our work clearing up streets, parking lots and airfields.
2:20 - LOL..... how many times did the driver's head smash into the steering wheel??!! Pretty sure they only had lap-belts back then. It says around 5:40 the driver's name is "Charlie." Knowing that and where this was filmed, I doubt it would be that hard to find out who filmed this....
Lack of decent lighting to plow constantly during night storms? Trying to think of the reason why they didn’t keep up w a storm instead of waiting until the storm ended.
The mill I work at has an old FWD (four-wheel drive motor company) military truck, at one time it had a snow blower mounted to the front of it homemade and was used to clear local roads, cab is made of wood and tin, old girl is real rough these days but she was driven and park to where she sits now not too many years ago. When my grandma was alive she told me about the trucks that they had rigged up to use around Drumheller in the winter, all handmade by guys with next to no education, wish I could have seen them.
I know all to well what those guys went through. I own an old Coleman plow truck similar to the ones used here. I also plow snow from October to June over two mountain passes. Granted I use a modern grader but 5 feet of hard packed snow and up to 12 foot drifts it's hard going. Hats off to those old timers!
my great uncle used to talk about walking to school and being able to through snow ball DOWN at the cars cause the banks were taller then the roofs of the cars.
Not sure OSHA would have approved the county workers standing in the path of the truck plowing towards them. Lived in upstate NY for 10 years and always amazed at the equipment used to move snow. NYS Turnpike would send two trucks with side wing plows down the road clearing anything in front of them. Our village of Sweden, outside of Brockport, were masters of clearing surface streets, regardless of snowfall. You left your car in the road at your own risk. If it didn’t get buried, good chance you’d be missing a mirror or more after you dug it would. Mailboxes were another unintended victim - smarter residents would mount theirs on a pivot to hopefully swing out of the way of passing snowplows.
That's brutally hard on those poor trucks... and it's why so much of the snow belt migrated to giant snowblowers, which make this job much, much easier. Also... the cars behind that fast-moving plow could not possibly have been "waiting to get out". That plow would have perfectly sealed the driveways on both sides of that road.
This reminds me of a winter storm we had in Minnesota 40+ years ago I had to crawl out a window to get outside to shovel snow away from the door to our house.
No way this video was produced in 1939. Mic quality, colorization, dialect of the narrator all point to something produced in the late 1960s from older footage. Reminds me of the old disney documentaries.
A long time. With low gearing, the clutch never needed to slip much for cushioning. Walter trucks were famous for the durability of the entire drive train.
I really enjoy 40s and 50s problem solving. 1) Can you put a bigger motor on it? 2) Can you hit it harder? This applies to civilian and military problem solving of the day.
You don't slip the clutch on trucks like that. You just engage it and go, and with no slippage, there's not much wear and certainly no burning. As to those other breakage issues you are thinking of, Walter trucks were famous for the durability of their entire drive train.
Can’t help but wonder how many times the transmission was toasted in that truck. Brutal on the operator, brutal on the vehicle to be essentially slamming into a wall of dense sand repeatedly.
