Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-01-29
THE ROTARY FLOW AT WORK.

senger train has to be kept constantly on
the move. lest in few hours IL become
Incapable Of movement at all.
AT such time ii is no unusual thing
TO see several hundred men at work on
single drift Perhaps eight or a dozen
platforms are cut in the snow and thus
what Is removed from the line Is passed
Upward from stage 10 stage. climbing the
steep walls in tiny shovelfuls. until II
hnally reaches the open waste thirty or
forty feet above the heads of the workers
on the ground level
Inc men are brought to the spot in spe-
ciai trains and fed and housed as best they
Can be- They work day and night some
stretch. At
The Rotary Piow.
me thing that has simplified the task
Vi snow hghting more than anything else.
specially IN the prairie country. is the
rotary plow- The appearance of the "ro-
tary'' as it is Familiarity called by railroad
men, reminds one Of nothing so much .s
the screw propeller of a steamship Il !.
huge rosette of fianges, about tvclya e.,
IN diameter. that bores its way into snon.
pahks; clearing just enough space 10 on
tbe u .he ma iIg Train to pass through As
"a niIteE goes on, the snow Is piled higher
anu hlgher on both sides until we bara ~
IL penuicuiar embankments through which
out break. i''i'e' Will
AS the wheel revoIyes tn. srorr o,,-.
pass PACK through the Intervals betwasn
ehe shovels. fall into q large-sized fsn
eIe.ator ana are hurled forth on this sida
cu.rt ta. s slde OF the line. according to the
Eui yer from which the wind is blowing
IN graceful arch of silver DUST the snos,
70 huhs INTO the air to a height of sjxty or
seventy feet. descending like a fonn,ain
r. tne han-puried posts of the telegraph
49,, 'is smokestack a volcano of fire IS
rising, There is an uproar like the sound
OF artillery galloping over a cobbIed street
AS a spectacular effect the snow plow "a n
go success some of the bigger plows
Meisn over nfty tons by themselves and
Win the machinery that operates thor, tba
TOTAL weight Is over 100 tons
me cutter, with its own private engine
as it were, is placed on a massive truck
which is inclosed like the cab ., n 49,
motive and linked to a heavy freight en-
CINE, the Hog" Following behind this
travels another engine. drawing it's tond Of
r ,, ahd It's complement of workers. The
men VINO operate snow pillow draw high
wages, the expenses in this respect on one
lob amounting to over $3.50 day. A rotary
ia good hands will clear a srow blockaled
track at the rate OF from two 10 twelve
miles an hour: but the cons,,mnt;on 80 .oai
Is one ton in thirty minutes.
Dangers i'm the Path.
With a rotary pillow the engineers do not
run the same risk as they do on the n,ov
or the old-fashioned type, with which #
was often necessary to charge the SNOW
pahk at top speed, not merely cutting
through, but burrowing under the snow.
But even the rotary plow is liable to be
oisapieo by encountering the frozen carcass
OF morse or steer in a snowbank or the
DEBRIS or fallen telegraph poles or among
Ihe mountains. the trunks of gigantic trees
II is nominally the duty of the section men
10 look out for this. and, IL possible. 10
warn the engine driver, and to telegram
LOT gang of workmen with pick and
shovel to clear the track in the oldfa an
iened way. But 1t is needless TO saw that
the most vigilant section men cannot AL
ways be relied upon in such a matter as
this. 90
1t isn't often that a train Is lost In a
snow storm, but that has happened once
at least. not in Dakota, either but in Eng
iand The train started on a Monday night
In February, 1881, with, fortunately, only
SIX passengers-four men and two women
IL was missing next morning, but no search
expeditions could then be organized on ac-
count OF the terrible state of the weather.
The train was discovered at daybreak ON
the Wednesday morning by farmer who
had ventured out in search of some missing
sneep. His house was barely 300 wards
from the spot where the train lay buried
beneath that Unreasonable white tomb
stone. but on account of the thickfy falling
snow he had not noticed it, All the COM
partments of the carriages, although the
doors and windows were closed, were filled
WITH snow up to the hat racks