PLOWING SNOW

Author’s note: The cute little fuzzball in this story is my cousin. His name is purposely obscured to keep him out of any more trouble than he already finds on his own.

A January rural Idaho ground blizzard obscured everything from Ririe to Newdale. School was canceled and anyone with common sense went skiing. Those with grain to transport had to stay home to keep access to their silos open. The Union Pacific snowplows consisted of a plow pushed down the tracks in front of four big diesel-electric engines followed by a tanker car filled with concrete. Those who have seen these dramatic machines immediately understand Newton's First Law of Motion as they see the inertia of tons of snowplow train converted into energy that lifts and throws two large waves of snow off the tracks and into the air on either side of the speeding plow. Next to the track, my cousin used his Caterpillar to move the snow off the access to his silos. He was careful not to dig up the rails as he plowed some of the snow over the tracks and into big piles on the other side. Let me see here, heavy snowplow trains, a 25-ton Caterpillar, and drifting snow--what could go wrong?

On the first day of this story, my cousin was very lucky. He was in his pickup and couldn't clearly see the train barreling down at him. He could only feel the deep rumbling. He stopped at the crossing and rolled down his window to get a better view. The wave of flying snow obscured the big plow with four roaring engines pulling a big tanker car full of concrete for ballast. As the train thundered by right in front of him, the wave of snow crashed over him, filling the cab of his truck through the open window. That must have been memorable--he's still talking about it almost 40 years later.

The next day, the big four-engine snowplow returned to clear more snowdrifts off the tracks. My cousin was out in his pickup, helping a neighbor, before going down the road to check on his grain silos. The closer he got, the more he realized that something wasn't quite right. The huge snowplow and four engines were derailed on one side of the track, and the concrete-filled tanker car had landed on the other side between two of the silos. The train crew was not injured, however, they did come away with a big story. As they looked around the accident site, they speculated that the train had gone off the rails when the wheels tangled with snow and ice that had been compacted on and around one section of track. They concluded it must have been heavy equipment or trains, loaded with grain, going over the drifting snow. As he listened, my cousin realized that he knew of a machine that could have done this. He also knew that he had parked that machine in his shed. It was the 25 ton D-6 CAT that he had recently driven over and over the same spot, plowing snow away from around his silos. He knew it was an accident but did not volunteer this theory immediately, leaving others to speculate on why trains go off the rails in the winter. The engineer was still a little shaken, but he did mention that he recognized my cousin's pickup as the one he narrowly missed hitting the previous day during the ground blizzard.

As far as the railroad was concerned, drifting snow and environmental hazards were the primary causes of the derailment. There was some local speculation as to how ice and snow came to be packed so densely around the rails. Some of the locals brought up the name of one unpleasant neighbor as a suspect for purposeful snow packing. When asked if it was possible that this particularly despicable man would do such a thing, my cousin wisely responded, "Uhhhh, I don't think so." Rather than take his theory this public, he quietly stepped up to the plate with Union Pacific, and his insurance company footed the bill. After everything was patched up and paid for, the story faded away with the melting snow, and no one ever attached his name directly to the episode. However, on the spur line from Ririe to Newdale, it is common knowledge that using a 25-ton Caterpillar to plow snow across a railroad track is not a great idea unless you are looking for a really good story.

Nowadays, my cousin mostly drives electric carts on fairways in the winter, chasing golf balls from Maui to St. George. Smart man. I think he has come to prefer green fees and repairing divots to plowing snow and paying for train wrecks.

Ever vigilant,

RT