Re: Snow plows, geared locomotives and rod locomotives

My old friend Charles Heimerdinger just brought up a couple of good points on this subject...

Since it benefits the railroad to get the snow further away from the rail, the Heisler had an
advantage over the Shay with somewhat higher speed.

Also, the San Joaquin & Eastern, a common carrier to the South, was known to prefer
it's Climax type over the Shay for the clearance issues mentioned earlier.

JB, your point about the gearcases on the Heislers is well taken. Pickering only had one
paved crossing and that was at Ralph at a lower elevation. The crossing by Gurney in Twain Harte
was likely dirt back then and they really didn't start opening the line up usually until April.
All of the active power got shopped over the winter and that took a few months time. Plowing was mostly done
at the higher elevations. It was slides that took a lot effort to clear and they used a bucket on one of the cranes
for this.