The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-01-30

! TO see several hundred men at work on
/ a 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 to stage. climbing the
steep walls in tiny shovelfuls. until il
/ tnallS reaches the open waste. 30 or 40
Ieel above the heads OF the workers on
! the ground level
| The men are brought to the spot in
special trains and fed and housed as best
! they can be. They work day and night
stretch
The thing that has simplified the task
OF snoW-nShting more than anything else,
especially in the prairie country, is the
rotary plow. The appearance of the 70
tary, as it is Familiarity called by rail-
/ road men. reminds one of nothing so
much as the screw propeller of a steam
snip. II is a huge rOsette Of fianges, about
i rect IN diameter. that bOres its way
, into Wbanks clearing just enough
space to enable the waiting train to pass
through. As the winter goes on. the snow
Is piled higher and higher on both sides,
until we have the perpendicular embank-
ments through which the train often
passes for miles without d break.
As the wheel revolves the snow ships
pass back through the intervals between
the shovels, fall into a large sized fan
elevator, and are hurled forth on this
side or that side of the line. according
70 the quarter from which the wind is
moving In a graceful arch of silver
dust, the snow is flung into the air to a
fountain over the half-buried posts of
the telegraph. From the smoke stack a
volcano of fire is rising. There is an
uproar like the sound of artillery gallOp-
ing over a cobbled street As a spec
tacular effect the snow plOw is a great
success Some of the bigger pIows
weigh over 80 tons by themselves, and
with the machinery that operates them
the total weight is over 100 tons.
The cutter with its own private en-
CINE, as it We're. is placed on a massive
NJ ffahn ie- ], Of
locomotive and linked to a heavy freight
engine. the Hog Following behind
this travels another engine drawing its
Toad of tools and its complement OF
workers. The men who operate a snow
plow draw high wages the expenses in
this respect on one job amounting TO
over sl3t day. rotary in good hands
VIII clear a snow blockaded track at the
rate Of from two to i miles an hour;
but the consumption of coal is one ton
in 80 minutes.
With rotary plow the engineers do
not run the same risk as they do on the
plow of the old fashioned type. with
Which il was often necessary to charge
the snOwbank at top speed not merely
cutting through. but burrowing under
the Snow. But even the rotary plow is
liable TO be disabled by encOuntering the
frozen carcass of a horse or a steer in a
SnOWbank. or the debris of fallen tele-
graph poles. or. among the mountains the
trunks Of gigantic trees. 1t is nOmnally
the duty Of the section men to look out
ivt lilSs ara, II possible To warn the
engine driver. and to telegraph for a gang
Of workmen with pick and shovel to clear
the track in the old fashioned way. But it
IS needless to say that the most vigilant
section men cannot always be relied upon
in sEch a matter as this.
II ISL often that train is lost in q
snoEs;orm, but that has happened once
at least. not il Dakota either. but in
England The train started on a Mon
day night in February 1881 with. for
tunately. only six passengers. four men
and t"o women. 1t was missing next
morning but no search expeditions could
then be organized on account of the terri /
bic state of the weather
The train was discovered at daybreak /
IN the Wednesday morning by a farmer /
who had ventured out in search of some (
missing sheep. His house was barely I
200 yards from the spot where The train T
ay buried beneath that unreasonable /
V hite tombstone but on account of the /
-hickly falling snow he had not noticed I
Z. All the compartments of the carriages, !
the doors and windows We're
closed, Were filed with snow up to the /
hat racks.