As far as anyone now connected with the EBT knows, the railroad did not have any kind of plow in the conventional sense -- neither a separate car that was pushed nor blades affixed to the fronts of the locomotives. The only evidence of any sort of plow is a 13-foot-long, V-shaped wood contraption that was apparently dragged behind the engine and that must have been as much a spreader as a plow proper. Bill Adams's Web site has
a photo of it lying upside down.
It's now in the lumber shed south of the shops. You can see a pair of indentations along the bottom edge so that it could ride down over the railheads, but it would have had to be lifted for crossings, switches, &c. An old valuation report that FEBT member Aaron Schwarz looked up a couple of weeks ago in the Library of Congress lists a "Drag snow plow, length 13' wood plated" and describes it as being "mounted on 2 wheels," although that's no longer the case (assuming that the wedge the railroad still has is the wedge described in the report). Nor is it clear how it would have been lifted.
This piece of equipment, and the whole question of snow plowing at the EBT, is a big mystery to many of us at the railroad. Several people have theories about how the contraption would have been operated -- perhaps section men rode on a flatcar behind it, prepared to raise it, somehow, when necessary -- but no one I've talked to sounds sure. There's also speculation that it might have doubled as a ballast spreader.
To me, though, all of that leaves wide open the question of how the railroad coped with heavy snow. Clearly it didn't just stop running, not with mail to deliver, miners to transport to and from the mines, &c. I asked Stanley Hall about this just a few weeks ago, and he swears there were no plows.
-- Lawrence Biemiller
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Lawrence Biemiller
Washington, D.C.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2009 03:50PM by lbiemiller.
