Winter in the mountains always poses a special challenge to trains-deep snow drifts, over ten feet high, make the track impassible. To remove snow blockades, the rotary snowplow was developed in the late 1880s. This wheel, over nine feet in diameter, cuts into the snow and throws it away from the track.
Since it was formed in 1970, the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad has on six occasions used the rotary snowplow to clear its track of accumulated snow over 10,015-foot Cumbres Pass. It has also been used for a few public demonstrations and in filming commercials. This book is a complete photographic record of all these modern uses of the rotary snowplow. The accompanying text is a detailed history of its development and operation, which entails close coordination between crew and equipment.
