From the Colorado Railroad Museum archives: Mac Poor interviews George Champion about the last Rotary Snowplow through the Alpine Tunnel: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-X6w_CjghBNk.htmlsi=PAa-C3mBkooHRmEs
487 and 484 did not sound happy with all that wheel slippage. All that weight in front of them, plus icy rails. I bet the two of them were pretty grumpy when they got back to the roundhouse later. XD That's so awesome that you got to be a part of that, though. Nice to see that some parts of this country are still getting decent snowfalls.
It was driving me nuts trying to figure out what that sound was until I saw the wheel slippage on 487. Trying to understand just what is going on... just the valves and Piston going nuts because as the wheels slip the mechanicals keep trying to do their job and swap steam direction?
Seeing those two engines both slipping really shows that traction requirements of this operation. A foot or two of snow doesn't look like much next to a massive locomotive, but that is still ample amounts of snow to move. Also doesn't help that it is a literal uphill battle here as well.
Is that what was making that noise that sounded like popping? EDIT: yep I just reached the part that clearly shows the engine losing traction and just chuffing like mad.
@@airplanemaniacgaming7877 Yup, just the wheels slipping and the valves letting the pistons rev up. Inevitably stalling out since the mechanism can only go "that fast", and eventually the engineer lets off the pressure a bit so that the wheels spin down and regain traction again. Sure makes for an interesting sound.
Breaking news: Colorado Highway Patrol has arrested a suspect in the murder of a snowman at the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic. The suspect, a man named Mark Huber, has been sentenced to execution by liming.
When 99201 got the new carbody, it also received a surplus boiler from 0-6-0 #232. So there is at least a part of one of the C&S's fleet of 0-6-0's remaining.
My Grandpa was an Engineer for Great Northern and then B.N., he would go back and forth hauling freight between Spokane and Whitefish. He'd talk of spending some miserable night stuck on some spur waiting for the plow to come clear the pass. I asked if it was miserable from the cold? "Cold!, hell I kept it warm as Miami, I just wanted to go home". Miss you Grandpa.
My favourite train period. My childhood was spent taking the same VHS out of the library over and over and over of these great paddleboard-faced trains and watching them spew snow from the tracks, they're nostalgic. Never could find that video again, but there's still something so magical about seeing a big shed of a steam engine crawling down the line spewing snow and coal-soot. There's something about them (and signaling back to the propelling engines behind them) that makes them feel like living, breathing beasts instead of tools.
@@Hybris51129 I'll check it out.. I doubt it's mine since it seems that is just big trains in general and the one I remember was specifically rotary snowploughs, but it's a lead as good as any. Thank you!
The WP&YR has had their rotary up and running for the last 30 years, and its quite incredible looking at the old photographs of rotaries in snow deeper than the roof of the cab, but even the snow became too much for the rotaries sometimes as 20 proved on lizard head pass in 1938
Judging by the way Frosty turned to orange slush there was some seriously oxidized paint or a lot of hidden surface rust on OY's blades. I know Illinois Railway Museum has it's former CGW plow because some time in the late 2Ks some brain wizard in UP's accounting department saw somewhere on a balance sheet all these surplus pieces of equipment sitting disused on yard sidings all over the upper midwest and thought taking the tax write-off would help the bottom line and earn him some kudos, apparently ran it by someone and got the OK and the " surplus " equipment got sent off to various museums or scrap. Just one small problem that winter when a huge blizzard hit Minnesota and the UP needed to break out the serious snow fighting equipment on their former CNW holdings and found empty sidings where that " surplus " equipment had been stored. Yep Einstein in accounting had gotten rid of all the snowplows and effectively shutdown UP in the state of Minnesota for 2 or 3 days.
On the my ‘home road’, the Newfoundland railway, had a few ‘plow cabooses’. They where shaped like cabooses, but with one end being a massive plow. We also had a flamethrower ice melter, for switches. If I recall correctly, it was built by the US navy when there where here in WWII. Dunno how long it lasted, but not long
I remember a while back we (Museum staff) discussed doing a Rotary demo on compressed air....pretty sure we actually tested the boiler and confirmed it was doable.....I want to fire it up and throw a watermelon in (as an homage to that time we crushed a watermelon with the OB Piledriver).
I was a member of Union Pacific railroad Snowfighters from 2008-2020 on Donner Summit. I and my coworkers helped rebuild 5 flangers, 5 Jordan spreaders, and 2 Rotaries. Ours are now 21st century equipment. I’m proud of my work on this project to modernize this Historic equipment.
This makes me think of a picture on the Colorado Midland of a rotary being pushed by at least 3 maybe 4 locomotives on the run up to the continental divide
The rotary snow plow was invented in Canada by Toronto dentist Dr. J.W. Elliot in 1869. I don't think they're used much in Canada anymore; heavy earth moving equipment is used instead. Rotary plows were good at clearing snow drifts on the prairies, but avalanches in the mountain often caused the blades to break as the snow often contained rocks and tree stumps, etc.
Took my senior photos in front of that beautiful machine. So glad my favorite piece of railway equipment (yes including locomotives) got highlighted on this channel!
Hi Mark! Nice to see that you did a video on Rotary snowplows my favorite Rotary snowplow being Rotary OY on the C&T and as for the Engineer on the rotary. Rotary Snowplow Enginners are called the Piolet or the Wheelman
Spectacular, what a symphony of steam you have captured, the OY giving its all is something else! A great explanation and look at the museum’s rotary plow too! So cool to see history preserved and appreciated like that.
DSP&P held mechanical snowplow trials early on-- pitting a Leslie rotary against this plow thing invented by Orange Jull. Picture a rotary body with a giant woodscrew cantilevered out the front. Needless to say, the rotary won. Also, the last rotaries built by Lima for UP and RI were oil fired, were equipped with a Worthington feedwater heater, and drove the wheel with a three-cylinder Shay engine.
One small correction: Quite a few of the later Lima plows drove the wheel with a Shay engine. But, according to an online copy of a writeup by Harold Rees from 1966, the circa-1949 Lima UP rotaries used _two_ Shay engines. And were rated at 2000hp.
@@zaklex3165From what I remember reading, the Jull Excavators had issues with their front bearing overheating on the screw plow, which looked like a giant cone angled down to a point in one corner of the plow hood. I always wondered how that could be with the bearing always being shoved deep into whatever snow was being plowed. The business end of these were such an outrageous-looking piece of equipment that it's a pity they weren't successful.
At the railroad museum I visit often, they a have Lake Superior and Ishpeming plow car. It is similar in size to the rotary, however, it just has a gigantic plow at the front. Kind of similar to the plow shown on the gondola but without the bottom wedge and much bigger. I’d also say that the rotary is much more comfortable, even with the giant boiler running through the middle. The plow car inside is mostly empty, except for the handbrake and what I presume to be some form of coal heater. There is also no seating inside the car at all. There is a copula at the top of the car as well. Unlike a caboose, the actual copula is actually at the front of the car. The copula is larger than that of a caboose’s and has the closest thing towards seating (a set of wooden latter like stairs that lead to the back window of the copula to get to top of the car). Both sets of wooden stairs (one to get up to the copula) were not heated so you can say goodbye to your warm behind if you decided to sit down.
I really would love to see these in action. Born and raised in upstate NY, we get to see the huge plows with the cabs on top of the blade. Taller than a 2 story house, and very intimidating up close. Thanks for this!
We here in Newfoundland didn't seem to have rotaries, as blindingly obvious as it is now that we needed them. We had the massive wedge plows mounted on custom modified caboose that we'd stick on the front of the train.
Top notch video! I don’t think I’ll be able to think about rotaries again without associating them with Snowmanocide but hey! That’s still some really cool stuff! Thank you so much for sharing!
Want more Railroad Snow Fighting Equipment history? Check one of our first Big Train Tour videos here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XQOlX75mVTE.htmlsi=jEtGp8CP6OIBliu5
We shared some Rotary footage shot by Museum volunteer George Lawrence for our #ThrowbackThursday series a while back: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mS1RuF6DRso.htmlsi=HbSgc1leOR_DbDQ1
I wonder if diesel powered rotaries have train controls in the cab as well as the plow controls so that the engineer could just MU the engines to the back of the plow. I know that something similar was done back in the steam days, not necessarily in America. Some railroads did it, like the Southern Pacific, but mostly in Canada and Scandinavia, there would be a series of cable-driven levers in the snowplow's cab that would actuate the locomotive controls. Pretty much just like steam powered inter-urban trains back in the day, where there would be a set of controls at each end of the train; one in the cab and one in the last car. Pretty awesome video, my man! I've always loved rotaries for the sheer amount of snow they could move, and I've always wanted an inside look at one. Thanks so much!
One of my fondest memories was an ancient VHS video of a snowpiercer slowly moved its way through the Rockies I believe, tossing snow in what my childish imagination remembers being "hundreds of feet!" as I excitedly told everyone I could. Thanks for this vid and now I feel old lol
The Railroad 101 videos are still my favorites! I never considered just shoveling snow in as a source of water. Looks like OY carried its own extra tank car of water.
I noticed it also had its own designated camp car on the back of the train, which says rather a lot about how often they used it and what the shifts were like. They were clearly planning for some serious outings on a regular basis!
Ahhh to spend a day with Hyce, I so deeply want to be involved in US locos and everything to do with them, all I get in Wales is narrow gauge novelty engines
this is a very interesting video! I never thought I'd know this much about Rotary plows (honestly, I didn't even realize you guys had one!) but I'm glad that ha changed.
One important piece of info about rotary snowplows is once they are finally needed to clear the line you are basically stuck using them for the rest of the winter. Great for railfans, not so good for the railroad. Love hearing about how the equipment worked and seeing inside.
I remember them as a kid in Canada. Sadly we don't make use of them any more, but it is good that Union Pacific still does. The example you are showing has quite the heavy flywheel to try to keep it from bogging down.
The SP converted some of their rotaries to electric, they took F7B’s removed the traction motors and placed them in the plow. The F7B power to the rotary this still had to be pushed as the b unit had no motors. The D&SL had some of the largest rotaries built, I think these were sold to the NP or GN. That rotary inside is kind of like a caboose with a C19 inside of it. Thanks again for a very entertaining and informative video.
Hyce, back when Athern was still producing kits, I thought about building their rotary and putting a dummy F unit behind it. Of course it would not be on my layout as I was interested in late 1800, early 1900 steam at the time. The other observation is, why didn’t Athern ever provide a tender?@@Hyce777
I was at that train museum last summer I might have talked to you. I got to watch one of the tiny blue steam engines turn on. It had some name but it was so long ago. I like was walking around that snow plow on that track. I’m so happy.
The 1974 movie "Murder on the Orient Express" has some really cool footage of a steam locomotive pushing a large snow plow, with wheel slip and everything. I believe it's not a model, but the snow may be fake.
Man 481 is running hard pushing that plow cool to see. I can see how snow plowing with a rotary plow can be a exercise in coordination between plow operations keeping the plow going fast enough not to bog down the train but not using all its steam, and the pusher trains pushing but not going to fast to bog down the plow.
I don't normally watch this type of content, but this caught my attention at something called "The Rotary" and involving trains and, I can say, this was very interesting and cool.
Amazing footage of it in action, seeing the two locomotives struggling and slipping to push it really demonstrated just how much work it was doing in a really visceral way.
Hi Mark, getting your expert’s tour of the CRRM’s rotary snow plow was such a treat! Quite something to observe how the interior spaces are divided up, where all the controls and crew go (or should I say squeeze into) and all that. Familiar but different. Really liked the historic context you gave us as well. BTW, the new paint scheme looks amazing, OMG! Huzzah to the museum crew for yet another ultra-fantastic restoration job! The footage you took, Mark, of the C&TS rotary plow was as you said mesmerizing and may I also add majestic. Snow plumes, steam and smoke billowing everywhere such an amazing sight! Like watching Old Faithful, but with choo choos 🤣! An incredible video, thanks as always for creating this latest excellent 101 episode Professor and cheers to you and the CRRM!
its nice seeing this since it was the one things that kept mountain passes open so small towns could get things they need during heavy storms. Next thing on your channel that i would like to see is what would the old railroad do when you had a derailment.
Been watching your videos, very interesting and learn new things. You don't go overboard with descriptions, or under describe. Can tell you enjoy talking about them. Thanks, and maybe sometime well see you at the museum.
im not much of a train guy. as my name would implicate im more of a plane guy, but god you have made it so easy for me to understand trains and such. thank you very much Hyce!
Many thanks to Hyce for the videos he has made about steam locomotives, you helped me recharge my loves for steam locomotives. Thanks to you I started working at a railway museum. Thank you Hyce
First, I love that you just casually call it the giant spinning wheel of death. Second, how does one get a spot on that sort of excursion for photos? Third, when you mentioned tossing snow into the tender, I was reminded of a cartoon of a cow riding a lawnmower that discharged direct into its mouth. Wouldn't a self feeding setup like that be something. Lol
1: I'm glad. 2: This one was one you had to know about from the railroad - they put it out in their newsletter and on a few forums. Despite having 120 slots, it had a wait list and was expensive; but worth for some of us dweebs. :D 3. Lol, yes, something like that. :D
They have one of these parked beside the road between Kenai and Anchorage, AK. They used to use it to clear snow from the tracks, but it later became a museum piece for a small roadside museum
Meme I saw online years ago with a pic of a rotary plow captioned "cow catcher makes ground beef" will always stick in my head. Thanks for the informative video!
I started playing derail valley because of your videos and have gotten to the point of using 7 DE2's and a slug, I am playing on casual difficulty but I'm glad that you got me into this game
Don't forget - most rotaries ended up with auxiliary water cars since they were quite water hungry. The locomotives usually drew the short straw as they are filling the cisterns from the front to the rear, they have known to run out of water (497 case in point) and every time they had a chance, they had men shoveling snow in their tenders as fast as they can, albeit not enough sometimes and that's when the engineer gives a long blast on the whistle to let them know he is about to the point he has to drop his fire.
Hi Hyce! Loved the video!! Funny you made this since there is (I kid you not) an original unreleased pilot of the SNOWPIERCER TV show where the train HAS A ROTARY PLOW and was directed by Scott Derrickson from “The Black Phone” and “Sinister”. So The “Rotary plow horror movie’ does exist on a hard drive in Canada RN
WHEN WORKING FOR SANTA FE IN ARGENTINE I GOT IN 4 DAYS OF HARD LABOR WORKING ON SANTA FES LONE DIESEL-ELECTRIC ROTARY, ON AN EMERGENCY REPAIR! AS IT WAS BEING USED IN WESTERN KANSAS , THE MECHANICAL ATTENDANT WAS NOT AWARE OF THE LUBRICATION NEEDS OF THE 4 EMD TRACTION MOTORS AND LINESHAFTS TURNING THE MAINSHAFT AND ROTOR! ALL OF THIS WAS LUBRICATED WITH AN STEAM LOCOMOTIVE LUBRICATION PUMP WHICH WAS NOT REFILLED, CAUSING THE BEARINGS TO OVERHEAT AND FAIL! FINALLY ON THE FOURTH DAY, REPAIR COMPLETED, I GOT TO FIRE UP THE LOCOMOTIVE CABLED TO IT, AND ROLL THE ROTOR FOR AN 2 HOUR BREAK IN AND BEARING CHECK! I DID NOT, HOWEVER GET TO GO WHERE IT WAS NEEDED AND SEE HER AT WORK! KEEP THEM ROLLING BROTHERS!👍👍
This may have already been mentioned in the comments, but a few interurbans and street railways had self-propelled electric rotary plows. The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company, for example, had three. All three were converted to wedge plows at the end of the 1920s.
Thank you for sharing and explaining these unique pieces of equipment. I have seen the diesel rotary snowplow at the California State Railroad museum, I had also seen the clips of the C&TS rotary OY, clips before but I saw them when I first found this channel and before I understood what exactly was happening.
That Rotary Snowplow reminds me of the one that I found entirely by chance just outside of Anchorage, Alaska, in the Potter Section House Railroad Museum. The Museum itself has, very sadly, seen better days (so it seems--it was closed when I discovered it), but the centerpiece, the Rotary Plow itself, is still very visitable (from the outside, anyway). Heartily recommend visiting, should you ever be in that area.
Living in Canada, I get to see the big snow plows in action every so often. Side note, long story short, customs wont let me send you the tail feathers I mentioned. I have another idea, but unless you come to Canada, or I end up in the USA, dont think I can get them to you.
International shite... That's how it be sometimes. I'll be in the Toronto region in July! I appreciate you. I have a hyacinth tail feather at my mom's house I should go get...
I've seen an old photo of Midland rotary on the trolley tracks in Colorado Springs after a blizzard. They laid temporary tracks between the two systems.
