Snow plowing?

[railwatcher]

How much snow is needed to do snow plowing on the lines? Does each of the LAL lines have all of their own plows? These thoughts came up as we are now finally getting something like winter. How much snow can be handled by the plows on the front of the engines?

[TB Diamond]

To address your last query: Was called for snow plow service in CO and NE back several years ago. One job had a Russel plow, two GP40s and a cab. Hit drifts to 10' in depth in several cuts at 40 mph and came out the far side at 5 mph. Shoved 2' of snow at a steady 25 mph. Power limits the amount of snow a Russel can handle up to a point. Had the cuts been any longer a stall would have been fact. Then, there is a definite difference between hard packed, drifted snow and loose, newly fallen snow so far as ease of shoving the stuff goes. A few years later, on the same line, a rotary plow had to be used as the cuts were drifted in even deeper than before.