The Arizona sentinel., 1888-03-31
BEHIND A SNOW FLOW.
Cutting Through Drifts on the
 Western Prairies.
Excitin g Experiences While Fighting Snow Piles in the Northwest-StOries of Engineers Who Are Used to
 the Business.


 '1t is not every engineer that can run snowiplow." said locomotive engineer the other day. You can take the best runner on the road and put him on a snow blow and very likely he would resign his job in an hour if he could, just because he is not fitted for the place. Nowadays snow blows are different from what they were back in the sixties. I was then On the St. Paul road, and they turned snow blow out of the shop and put me aboard. The engine was a wood burner with big stack, and the snow blow excited the admiration of every body that saw it. It was made of riveted boiler plates, and reached about two feet over the top of the stack. It was V-shaped in front and was bolted to the pilot and the man. head of the boiler. It did fairly good work, and was so much more effe ctive than the former ones that it became noted. A snow blow nowadays will do more work in one hour than 1 could do with the old, Fearless in day.
 1.-The last snow blow that ran was the new Storm King on the Northern . Pacific. It was made of wood with a steel shoe and cut-water. or cut-snow as we called it. Instead of being at tached to the engine, it is built on a car and pulled behind the engine. This ear was warm, had a stove, and was pied half full of pig iron to hold it down.
 'To give you some idea of the work a snow plow has to do, you will sup pose that blizzard has been blowing for three days, and traffic has been entirely suspended. At last the wind stops blowing. The morning is clear and cold-oh, so cold! The snow blow is ordered out. Gangs of men are at work shoveling off the turn table and clearing the yard. You jump into the cab of your engine and your fireman incidentally re- marks: It's forty degrees below, Hank That's pretty chilly, but you don't mind it because you are dressed for it. 1 weigh one hundred and sixty-five pounds in the buff, but when lam dressed for forty degrees below zero with a snow blow I appear to weigh three hundred.
 '.Now we are ready to start Slowly we move out of the round-house to the main track, where we couple on car filled with provisions and snow shovelers. h the town we find every thing clear. but the minute we get be- yond habitation, which doesn't take long up in Minnesota and Dako ta, our work begins.
 ''The sun looks like frozen ball of butter in the air, and on each side is sen the sun dogs. that invariably show up on such cold mornings. They are very beautiful, with their rain bow colors, but we hate to see them all the same, for they fortell a continuance of the cold weather. The rays of the sun emit no warmth, and the air is full of little needle-like particles of frost The curtain of our cab is let down and tightly buttoned. Our windows are battened, and we are comparatively warm. The side windows are immedi- ately covered with frost from our breath and the steam, but the fireman keeps the front windows clear. May be we go along smoothly for a mile before we strike a drift As far as the eye can reach there is a trackIess waste of snow, white and glistening. Fences are obliterated in white drifts that are sometimes fantastic in their shapes. The snow-cutter on the en- zine pilot is cleaving it's way through the snow, occasionally striking drift that makes it jump little, and behind the Storm King is sweeping it up from the rail and two feet on each side sending it up and outward like jets from a fountain.
 " There's big one, Hank, says the fireman. Sure enough. a quarter of a nile ahead is big drift half as high as a house, that has blown through a gap in the fence. We are gring about twenty miles an hour I would be easier to go througi that drift if our pace was accelerated a liuIe. pull out the throttle and we bound along thirty. then forty miles an hour until we are upon it, and a little extra yank at the throttle and we dive into it. That was fun, and how the snow did fly. It was only couple of rods long and six feet deep. and we cut through it like a sharp knife through piece of cheese.
 ''Again we have clear sailing until tve.ieseh a cut. This cut is from si3