I think you can pretty safely assume Earl's comment would apply to just about every time the Rotary was run. It does a lot of shakin!! It has to work real hard to chew through the hard stuff thats been thawed and refrozen or simply snowpacked for a few months.
I have a piece of vintage film of a UP Rotary on the Coalmont line out of Cheyenne, and they are simply flying compared to the OY's runs. Of course it was white powder for the most part that the UP plow was blowing, so it was way easier.
I never said the fall season would be more economical by keeping it open, just easier to continue, than try to restart everything in say late November for the Holiday season. It would take some experimenting and perhaps thats not an option they want to explore with limited resources.
I remember doing the 1992 John Craft charters, after the season ended. Essentially it was a 10 day period after the end of the season. GM Joe Vigil told me we were really lucky with the weather since snow can set in anytime in October. We had lovely dry days with loads of sun and blue sky every day. I understand that a day or two after the last trip it snowed like crazy! That was a bad winter, and they used the Rotary in the spring of 1993 which was a tough one as well...anyone remember them shoveling snow into the engine tenders!!! Wild stuff!
Greg