Yay! SWSat is on!
Happy Saturday guys. You guys need one of these for your switching yard.
It is a jet powered Snow blower NYCentral made to clear the snow in thier yards. The jet used was repurposed from the rail land speed record breaking jet powered RDC they had made.
I'm sitting inside in my sweats, looking out the window at nice white, cold snow, too.
Santa Fe had a machine similar to this, that they were trying out to remove sand from the main line out in the desert near Cadiz. (When trains passed at 70 MPH [90 MPH for passenger] the pumping action of the rail and the wind turbulence of the passing train caused fine sand to build up between the tie plate and the rail, and spikes were lifting.)
Back around 1976, I was the Engineer on the Victorville road switcher when we had a nice 18-inch snowfall, and the Division Engineer ordered a work train to bring the sand blower to Victorville and blow the snow out of the yard -- something they had never done, but they had the machine and it sounded like a good idea. I stood on the station platform and watched the operator start the jet. The work train engine shoved it slowly down the switching lead and into the farthest track from the main line. A huge cloud of snow preceded the loudly whining jet. When it backed through the track to clean the next one, the Section Foreman took a look at his section house, which now looked like it had been in a war. There was no glass remaining. The section crew - who had been staying warm inside the building - were scared out of their wits when the windows blew out and everything that weighed less than 5 lbs. was furiously blown around the room. They had all run outside to seek safety in the depot.
And then the Section Foreman saw his 1951 Chevrolet, his pride and joy, parked next to the section house. It had been dented by flying rocks and all the glass was gone. The interior was full of snow (and, I guess, rocks too). He threw down his hard hat and swore in Spanish for a long time. I saw him pointing a finger at the snow blower operator, who shut down the machine. The Section Foreman had to use the depot telephone, and we all made ourselves scarce. He emerged from the depot and, along with the section men, started cleaning out his Chevrolet. Shortly thereafter the Operator came out of the depot with a clearance card for the work train, which departed in disgrace.
It appears to be a BLW Vo1000 switcher from the Great Northern.
