I imagine it was quite a job to change a tube in a rotary boiler. My kiddo and I have had a lot of fun over the years poking around the OY at Chama, whence my email address.
Charles Weston --- On Tue, 12/21/10, JGG KahnSr <[email protected]> wrote: From: JGG KahnSr <[email protected]> Subject: RE: {S-Scale List} snow plow To: [email protected] Date: Tuesday, December 21, 2010, 2:46 PM Rotary plows were a lot more expensive than wedge plows, both to buy and to maintain (there was an entire steam engine in there-- most, like wreck cranes, were later dieselized), and the traffic on a route had to justify the investment. Many branchlines had to make do with just a wedge plow, and in the midwest that often was a homemade job (like the Sunshine kit or the Larsen project based on a MILW prototype) rather than a Russell-type. In mountainous territory I've read about crews actually dynamiting jams before they could attack them with the rotary (which works better on powder snow than the iced and impacted kind. Rotaries worked better in deep cuts where a wedge plow had no place to move the snow as it progressed. In the old days often three or four (or presumably more) steam locomotives would push on the plow, and often one of the was coupled tender-first to pull the entire train in reverse between pushes. And usually a snow train had a hopper or gondola full of coal to replenish tenders as they used up their loads--or, even worse, got stuck and needed to keep up steam to prevent freezing the boiler and piping. Not all plows had a coupler on the front (and those that did took a lot of abuse in service), but having one did facilitate moving them in a train or removing them from storage on the MOW track when winter threatened. The casting in the Ambroid kit seems to be a kind of pewter, sturdier than the usual white-metal, and both it and the headlight are specialty items; one can (and I have in other applications) fabricate one out of brass or styrene channel or rectangular tubing and bevel the mating surfaces to the plow. It won't be quite as fancy as the original casting but will do the job. Jace Kahn General Manager Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co. > On 12/21/10 1:56 PM, dhultay wrote: > > > > I have an Abroid snow plow kit missing front white metal casting > > coupler draft-gear box. Does any body have a source for one, or a > > decent substitute? > > Dennis H. Bloomfield NJ > > > > > > > Mine doesn't have one either. I'm wondering if the prototypes all had > them or perhaps they were removed when the crews readied them for winter > use. > > Several years go I purchased a VHS video of snowplows pushing snow in > Canada. Pretty interesting overall, but the last segment (as I recall) > shows one that derails and goes aerial. Not exactly 'Americas funnest > home video's' but pretty impressive. > > I often wondered why some railroads preferred plows vs the rotary > style. In mountain conditions when there was the possibility of rocks > and tree branches being mixed in with the snow the rotaries' blades > would be damaged immediately, so they had to stick with plows. I know > on many branch-lines the plows were almost useless if the track required > slow speeds--the plow trains just bogged down in the slow running. I > guess both styles are getting a workout in the mid-west and Eastern > states. I wouldn't know as it's nearly 80 today. > > Bob Werre [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
