Blizzard of '13

[Mike Fox]

Winter work weekend should look more like winter now instead of bare ground like it was earlier this week.

[Ira Schreiber]

You want winter...
You got winter.
We, here in Metro Denver, have had about 5" this year. We are very dry.

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

This snow could be around for weeks.  Next months Easter Bunny may have to be a snowshoe rabbit.  Good thing the Easter eggs are colored.

[Jock Ellis]

How are the dogs that have to go out every two hours or so?
A bread deliveryman told me that if the weather forecaster on TV says there is a chance of snow he puts $600 in his pocket as worried Georgians clear the shelves.

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

A friend of ours told us that she shovels a place in the back yard for the pooch to go.  

Our church cancelled services yesterday morning so Cindy and I started shoveling.  We cleaned off our F150 pickup and noticed that snow was packed underneath.  I wanted to move the truck to get to the snow and something told me to open the hood first.  The engine  compartment looked like we had shoveled snow into it.  It was completely full.  The truck was parked facing east and the snow had blown in through the grill and radiator.   I cleaned it all out, especially around the alternator as I didn't want the fan to force snow in when I started the truck.  I've never seen anything like it.

[Bill Sample]

We received record snowfall amounts in my area of CT - I can not remember seeing anything like this at any time in my life.  We had about 32 inches at Southington CT - too much snow for our neighboring ski area - no one could get there anyway except by walking as the roads were closed.  As of this morning the town had not yet plowed out our street but a combination of 3 large snowblowers and a small pickup mounted plow by neighbors opened one lane to the main road about 200 yards away.  Then they plowed out our driveway.    
Worst snowstorm since the Great Storm of March 1888 - remember a great aunt telling me secondhand stories of that, related by her in-laws who had to climb out a second floor window on the farm up in the Berkshire Hills in MA.
Thankfully this storm didn't strike on Train Show Weekend!

[Ken Fleming]

Maybe its time for ROWMOW Inc. to build ROWBLOW #1.  A snow blower mountable on a push-cart.  Parts could come from a salvaged blower(s) and mounted on a frame that could lower on cart by ROWCRANE.  Bolted down and then pushed by #51.  A quick look on eBay shows a lot of "parts" out there at reasonable prices or maybe a quick trip to local blower dealer's junk yard.  A used 60" PTO blower would do nicely.

It would be the first 2-foot Snow Blower. 

[Steve Smith]

Bill, re. your comments about the Great Storm of 1888: My dad was born in Sept. of that year. He grew up hearing from his elders about it. During my childhood in New Jersey, if somebody in the family said in say, late February, "Well, we're over the worst of it now, won't get much more snow" he would pipe up with, "Don't forget: The Blizzard of '88 started on March 11th, and lasted three days!"

Wiki has a great article about that storm under "Great Blizzard of 1888," mentioning drifts as high as fifty feet. Yikes!

[Mike Fox]

I had my 26 inch blower down there a few years ago when we had a bunch of snow. It worked in the yard just fine. But why blow if you can plow. 52 will plow the snow just fine, as long as the snow doesn't sit for a month. Get it while it is dry and fluffy.

The push car mounted blower is do-able. Accept for with a blower and any amount of snow, slow is the speed needed. The Brookville might even be too fast.

[Matthew Gustafson]

I feel sorry for you guys that you got the worst bit of the storm, when it hit my area of Chicago, it was bad but after looking at your photos, It looks like I got spared from the heart of the storm but at least you guys now went thru something similar to that storm we had here in Chicago back in 2011 that shut us down for 2 days.

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Jeff brought his loader to the railroad today.  He cleaned in front of the shop and put the snow where the coal pile used to be.  There's still some snow against the front doors that we will have to move to open the doors.  It was 45 today and will be in the mid-upper 30's Weds and Thurs so maybe more will melt and we won't have as much to shovel to open the shop for the work weekend.

Stewart

[Ken Fleming]

Something to do on "Snowy Days".  The links below are for Jigsaw Puzzles that can be done on your computer.  You can select your difficulty level on both sites.  Have fun!

The first site has daily train puzzles, plus 12 weekly train puzzles and many galleries of train puzzles.  There are links for other puzzle types, also.  

http://www.train-puzzles.com/index.html

The second site has all kinds of puzzles, however you can create puzzles from any picture that you have in your computer.  Try some of your W.W.& F. Ry photos.

http://www.jigsawplanet.com/

[Eric Schade]

here is what snow looks like to the little folk here in Phippburg:
http://youtu.be/d9OySygtYlI

I enjoy doing videos of my G-scale live steamers at work.  the best plowing shots were taken friday as the storm was building.  it was too cold for my camera though and I only got a few clips of the dry fluffy snow being scooped aside by my plow.  the shots with the trains struggling were taken during other storms.

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Hi Eric,

That's a neat film of your beautiful railroad.  Ever consider building a rotary??

Stewart

[Tom Casper]

Eric, nice video.  Looks like fun in the snow.  To bad mother nature won out over steam!

Tom C.