Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1893 — BUCKING INTO SNOW. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BUCKING INTO SNOW.

WHAT SEVERE WINTERS MEAN TO RAILROADS. Thrilling Experiences of Trainmen on the Prairies Rotary Plows Which Scatter Snow Like Chaff—How the Lines Are Kept Open. Terrors of the Drifts. Of all seasons of the year for railroad Ben winter is the worst. To train and engine men it means extra work and increased hardships; to the officials added cares and anxieties; to the stockholder extra expenses and diminished dividends. It takes a much larger force to do a given amount of work in winter than it does in.summer. The oil or "dope” freezes in the boxes on the cars, making the journals turn hard and re-

quiring much more power to naul them. The snow makes a “bad rail"—that is, it makes the rails so slippery that the adhesive power of the engine drivers is reduced so that much less than the usual number of cars can he hauled up a grade and trains cannot make time. Then the ground is frozen hard, the

frosty rails are more likely to break under the weight of trains, and a broken rail may cost half a dozen lives. The whole summer is devoted to preparations for winter. An extra force of men is employed in the shops in get-

ting motive power and rolling stock in good condition for the struggle in frost and snow. Hundreds of men are busy with steam shovels, gravel trains, and getting the roadbed in shape, and numerous bridge gangs look alter bridges and culverts. When the i 'ls once frozen about all the trackmen oan do is to patrol the track looking for broken rails and loose bolts, and shovel snow out of frogs and switches. When a joint sags in winter it cannot be leveled up with gravel tamped under the ties. ’ It must be “shimmed." A “shim” is a wedgeshaped piece of hardwood board about eight inches wide which is driven between the rail and the tie until the joint is level with the rest of the road. But it is with the first snow-storm that the trouble begins. When word is passed to the dispatcher that a blizzard is raging along the line freight trains already on the road are ordered to “tie up” at coal and water stations, passenger trains at eating stations, and trains not left terminal stations are “abandoned,” that is, ordered not to 1 deavo. When a train out on the road during a blizzard leaves one station and fails to report at the next in due time the dispatcher does not need to be told that that train is stuck hard and fast in a drift somewhere between the two stations. Accordingly he orders out a snow-plow and a way-car or two to pick up sectionmen to shovel out that train. This relief train stops at each sectionhouse on its way to pick up the “gangs, ” so that it soon has a good-sized force on board. The plow, or relief train, hurries to the last station tbs *• snow-bound train left; then proceeds under full control until the train is fenpg. The railroad men being familiar with the bad portions of the - are able to mua a jfcyto where the lost train will be fouad. ilipon reaching it the section riaeht ,ordered out to shovel the snofr away from the wheels, tbeagfow-plow couples on to the rear car'and assists the engine hauling the train %j>ack ootof the drifts Then snow wap,* and train back up to the torpsrmit the train to sidetrack and let the plow take the lead to clear the track. Or perhaps the relict pals may bo sent from the opposite mtm I >■

dis action—that is, meeting the snowbc and train. It depends . upmitj WbiQh wi y the train can be reached" the most re idily. When all trains are safe everybe iy simply waits until the storm ahfetes. Then comes “snow bucking." Hi ilroads within 300 miles of Chibago,

according to the Tribune, have but little “Snow bucking” to do. Did engineers on the Northwestern tell of times, when Chicago was somewhat smaller than now, when they had as hard battles with the drifts as any road west of the Missouri. One tale is told of a passenger train that ran into a

snowdrift on “Buckhorn" Hill, a few miles south of Milwaukee, and stuck there twenty-four hours before it was shoveled out. The engine was buried completely except a small hole over the smoke-stack melted out by smoke and gases. On another occasion the same winter six engines coupled together made a run for a drift. The snow was packer, so hard that the engine carrying the plow left the rails and climbed up on the snow. When they came to a stop and got down to investigate, the other engine men found the front engine sticking up in the air at an angle of twentyfive degrees, and the engineer and fireman lying under the engine between the firebox and the tank. They were not seriously hurt. In the good old days that veteran railroaders tell of snow-bucking was done by means of a “push-plow.” which was fashioned something like the plows farmers use, except that instead of throwing the snow all to one side, as a big farmer’s plow would do it, threw*it equally on each side. In other words, the push-plow consists of two concave surfaces joined at an acute angle sloping up at an angle of forty-five degrees from a horizontal plate of steel at right angles to and two inches above the rail. The plow is constructed of heavy iron and massive timbers. It is the width of a car and the top is on a level with the bottom of the headlight. It is bolted on the front of the engine whore the

pilot is usually carried. In light snow one engine is sent out with the plow, again two, three, or even five engines are coupled together, according to the depth and extent of the drifts to be encountered. The push plow simply pushes the snow to the sides of the road. The engine or engines are always run at their highest speed, for their weight and momentum are depended on entirely to carry them through. If they were to run slowly they would stick in tho drifts and would have to be shoveled out. It is perilous business,for the snow packs so hard out on the great prairies of Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Dakota that it often throws the plow from the track, particularly if it is a side drift, with the snow deeper on one rail than on the

other. Sometimes the plow slides up on top of the frozen snow without throwing the engine in.the ditch. Hardships, as well as danger, are connected with snow bucking. When running fine snow sifts In through the crevices in the cab, and, falling on the boiler-head, melts, filling the cab with steam. The clothes of the engineer and fireman are soon wet through, and they continue in that condition until their trip is finished. The cold air comes in through the same places that the snow does, so the men are not only wet but cold. The engineer is under a great and' constant strain to keep his engine up to its maximum capacity and watching the road. The fireman has no easier time than the

engineer, for the coal soon gets so full of snow that only the most expert fireman can keep steam up to serviceable pressure. Sometime an engineer and fireman are out from fifty-six to seven-ty-two hours on a snow-plow without a moment's rest and perhaps 1 but two or three meals during that time. As an exampie of what engine-men are sometimes called upon to endure, take the case of an engineer on the Northern Pacific, who was sent with a snow-plow west from Brainerd in the midst of a blizzard eight years ago to keep the road open. He was to be followed by other plows at intervals of a couple of hours. The officials hoped, in this way, to prevent a blockade. This engineer, after proceeding fifty miles, stuck in a drift. It was so stormy that he could not see the length of his engine. He had & big tank of coal, but the water was low, so he and the fireman took turns shoveling snow into the tank, where it was rnoltod by the “heater” —that is a small pipe to convey steam from the boiler to the tank, to prevent the water freezing. The storm lasted fifty-six hours. All the men had to eat during that time was one small lunch. When the wind went down, they found they were near a farm-house. There they procured food until relief came twenty-four hours later. The engineer was the only one of thirteen caught out on the road in that storm who kept his engine “alive. ” Five engine-men were frozen to death. If the snow is very deep the plow is followed by a “drag-out” and a gang of 200 or 300 shovelers. A “drag-out” is another engine to pull the plow engine out of a drift when it gets stuck. On coming to a deep cut the plow stops while the shovelers are brought up to “break” the snow. This is done by digging trenches across the track at a distance of 100 feet, more or less, so that the plow may not have a solid mass of snow to encounter. Then the plow engine backs up for a mile and a half and makes a run fqf the cut. By the time it strikes the drift it is going sixty miles an hour. The shock Is terrific. Often the plow buries itself completely and comes to a full stop in going 400 feet. The concussion throws a ton or so oi coal from the tank forward upon the deck of the engine. Sometimes it breaks the machinery so as to disable the engine totally—as the engineer would put it —“she strips herself. ” Then the shovalers come up and dig the snow away, and if the engine is all right the process is repeated until that cut is clear. It used to be a process of days to clear a division with push plows and shovelers. Each succeeding storm made matters worse, for the snow was simply pushed aside, not thrown out of the way. By the close of a hard

winter a great portion of the lino would be lined on either side by precipitous cliffs of snow. Sometimes these cliffs became so high that the only way fresh drifts could be cleared away was by shoveling the snow upon flat cars and hauling it out to a place where it could be got rid of. But methods of snow bucking have improved with other branches of railway service. In 1886, J. 8. Leslie, of Brooklyn, an employe of the Ballway Mall Service, perfected a rotary plow which was designed to cut and throw snow from the track as nearly like the shovel in humau hands as it Is possible to utilize steam power. This first rotary plow made its trial trip on the Union Pacific Ballway In the winter of 1886 and 1887, making a record of 3,000 miles through snow that sometimes reached a depth of fifteen feet, at a cost of 16J cents a mile for operating both rotary and pusher. This was remarkable when compared with the cost of the old methods of snow bucking. The rotary has been Improved since then until It Is considered perfect. Now an entire division can be cleared of snow in a day without discomfort to tho men who do the work. The plow simply starts from one end of the division and keeps going at the rate of twelve to twenty miles an hour until it gets to the other end, and that is all there is to it. When it goes through a drift it opens a room s passage, throws the snow entirely out of the way, and “flanges, every foot of road. Flanging is cleaning out the snow between and below the level ol the rails. The rotary has been introduced on a large number of the Important lines between the Atlantic, and Pacific coasts. Thousands ot miles of track have been cleared by it without the loss of a single life, it.is claimed, or the wrecking of a single engine. Compared with the long lists of costly wrecks and numerous fatalities by the old methods of enowbucking this is something remarkable. The rotary is also in use on the German and Russian Government lines. Another plow built and operated on the same principle as tho Leslie rotary snow plow is the Jull centrifugal snow excavator. Instead of a flat wheel made up of cone-shaped scoops as in the Leslie plov%the Jail plow removes the snow by means ot a great auger with the point directed down. It Is operated in precisely the same way as the other.

CENTRIFUGAL SNOW EXCAVATOR.

THE ROTARY SNOW PLOW.

LAST RESORT OF THE OLD WAY.

HOW THE ROTARY WORKS.

RESULTS OF BUCKING SNOW.

PASSENGER TRAIN FOLLOWING ROTARY.