Prototype ops

Kevin, from my limited first hand knowledge, snow clearing over Cumbres was done by "work" trains. The one I actually photographed was two engines, flanger, spreader, and two cabooses. But from pix I have seen, elsewhere on the DRGW flanging might have been done with the flanger at the headend of a revenue freight. And pix show different consists for the snow clearing trains over Cumbres. I think the flanger and spreader were typically run together over Cumbres with the following consist depending on what was needed and available. I suspect the old saw applies, there is a prototype for about anything. Tom Gildersleeve has pix of the flanger and spreader at the rear of a tank car train climbing Cumbres, which apparently was a deadhead move for the snow equipment, which then worked east from Cumbres after the tanks had been set out for a following freight.

In March 2014 we left Antonito with a bunch of cars, but when we had to buck deep snow in the cuts, we left everything else behind at Big Horn and plowed with just the engine, flanger, and cabooses. I was unable to be on last March's train but from what I have heard snow conditions were much different, with a lot of new fluffy snow, so a lot of the flanging was done with the whole train at track speed with show flying from the pilot plow and flanger. Very different experiences, but both very photogenic.

JBWX





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2015 03:09PM by John West.