Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-12-12
BATTLING WITH SNOW.
Great Railways Are Kept Clear In
Winter at Enormous Cost.

Winter at Enormous Cost.
There are thousands of men in the
Northwest whose only occupation dur
ing the winter months is to fight snow.
1t Is exciting work, too, life that in
wolves the greatest hardships and con-
dnual risks. One might search the
world over for more desperate and
dangerous employment. The cost of
these snow storms to the railroads is
something enormous. 1t is estimated
that the two leading lines running west
through Minnesota and North Dakota,
the Northern Pacific and the Great
Northern, and the leading road in the
northern part of South Dakota. the Chi.
cago, Milwaukee and ST. Paul, have
spent during one season not less than
sooo,oOO In clearing snow from their
tracks and in putting up additional
:ences and guards. Besides their shops
become filled with equipments dam
aged or ruined in tussles with the hard
snow-ice on miles of tracks. In addi-
non, other roads, whose mileage is not
so great or whose lines are in parts of
have spent half as much more in the
same time. In all it is believed 81 ,OOO,-
JOo is not too high an estimate of the
11rect loss, outside of lessened travel,
to the roads in the blizzard section dur.
ing hard winter.
Under favorable circumstances tine
snow parts readily before the onslaught
of the plow, but when the drifts are
found too deep or too hard for the
plows to handle hundreds of men are
set at work, and most of them learn
Tor the first time that shovelng snow
sabout as hard work as a man can ask.
They do not dig the track open but are
set off into little groups few yards
apart, and each group cuts square
hole down into the drift, perhaps clear
through it, perhaps only part of the
way down. Then the men are with.
drawn to Il safe distance and the wedge
plow, driven by three or four mogul
locomotives, pulling a half dozen heav.
lly-loaded coal cars to give impetus to
the mass when it strikes the bank of
snow, is sent at full speed into the hol
lowed drift. Often the entrance il
made at speed of thirty or forty miles
an hour, and usually the drift is con.
quered.
The introduction Of the rotary plow
has simplitied the task of snow fighting
more than anything else, especially in
the prairie country. 1t bores its way
into snow-banks, clearing just enough
space to enable the waiting train to
pass through. Some of the bigger plows
weigh over fifty tons by themselves,
and with the machinery that operates
them the total weight is over 100 tons,
In n number of cases snow fences
along the tracks have been blown into
the cuts by winds during the storms
and then covered by snow, the whole
mass being frozen solidly. Into this
mass rotary plows have been driven,
and not being constructed to fool with
sections Of fencing, they have invaria-
bly, got the worst of 1t and been dsa-
bled. One disabled machine, starting
for the shops for repairs, was behind
an engine that had to leave 1t and run
for water. Twenty minutes after the
locomotive had gone the track was
hopelessly blocked, and it took three
days to get back to that rotary plow.
AT another time at a station in North.
ern Minnesota the engine of passen.
ger train was detached to go to a tank
1000 feet away. When the water had
been taken the engineer found the
track blocked that he had come over
five minutes before, and it took him
and his fireman just fourteen hours to
go back that 1000 feet to the train
waiting at the station. a fearful bliz.
zard was raging and no man from the
station dared go to their relief, while
they did not dare trust themselves
more than few feet from their ma.
chine. At the end of fourteen hours
they had shoveled before the engine so
as to get back, and they We're so badly
frost bitten as to be laid up for several
days.
1t Is difficult to realize that the air
can be so full of snow as to hide objects
only few feet away, and that this oh.
structing snow Is so fine as not to be
distlnguishable at the same time. 1t is
hard to understand how a man can lose
his way in broad day on his own door.
step or on the way from his house to
his barn, but hundreds have had the
experience and scores have died in con.
sequence.