That is amazing! A 1940 GE 80 tonner built-in 1940 with a set of Hancock air whistles on each end of the cab. Pushing a circa 1900 plow! Excellent video! It's too bad their wasn't 2 feet of snow left when they plowed it!! Been up to the Valley Railroad to chase and ride Mikado #40 And Consolidation #97 during the warmer month's. Great operations! And now they have the Chinese Mike up there. I moved from New Jersey to South Carolina over 2 year's ago.it ain't NJ but it's nice!
I live near enough to have been through there many times but never saw any operations like this except for passenger runs - which I have done a couple of times. Very nice!
Nice but....needed more snow! Hope 2015/2016 generates much more of the white stuff and hence more video of this unique combo(in much longer videos too!). Really good to see old equipment showing that older doesn't mean obsolete!!!!!!
+ShastaPacificRoad This was a preventative move in case a larger snowstorm landed prior to passenger train ops two weeks later. Deemed wiser to do the line with the plow/wings, than just a loco run. Not too often we get to drag out the HT&W.
+Robert Bradway Well, recent events should have given more than enough reason to get the HT&W plow out! I grew up with lots of Milwaukee Jordan Flangers, homemade plows built on flats or gons or various steam tenders coming thru on the line from Des Moines to Sioux Falls plus some M&StL stuff(later C&NW) and a bit of Rock Island using trackage rights....think there was even a Russell or 2. This was in the late 50's and on to the present with the CN. Nice that with proper maint much of this MoW equipment is still in use albeit under different reporting marks...! Stay warm!
+ShastaPacificRoad The most recent storm, which gave Essex about a foot, mostly disappeared in 2 days. Next operating day is Feb. 13. We'll have to keep our eyes out for storms.
I wanted to mention the horn too. Sounds great...I really don't think they even needed to plow this amount of snow...But better safe than sorry getting stuck in a bank.
This scenery is really beautiful, but this is far from being a 2 foot deep snowfall. The only place where I see more than 6 inches is where the road plows left berms on the roadsides and level crossing.
Why does everyone need to be a critic, Can't you just enjoy a nice diesel loco in some scenic area being used to maintain the muses track.. Everybody has to say soething negative .
When you are trying to keep a railroad open in the winter, you make judgement calls. There may be more snow in some places, less in others - but you play to the "more" and that's part of why we dragged the plow out for this particular storm. Also, the flanger blade gets lowered to clear the snow from between the rails, which is very important when subsequent snowfall covers the tracks. Sorry if it wasn't Donner Pass.....but we do it to keep the railroad safe for passengers and employees.
