Ultimate Snow Blower

prosperity · Feb 29, 2004

We had some serious sleet slides in our county last week. I finally got to "play" with the ultimate snow removal machine.
The blower head is 6' high by 8' wide and powered by an independent 200hp diesel mounted on the back of the truck. What a "toy"!

OkeeDon · Feb 29, 2004

Nicely composed picture. I enjoyed looking at it. Properly framed, it would have been a winner at our County Fair this past week.

prosperity · Feb 29, 2004

Thanks for the nice comment Don. That's what is so nice about digital cameras - I shot that particular scene 12 times and came up with 4 nice shots.

PineRidge · Feb 29, 2004

That's a "right nice" action shot you captured there. Thanks for sharing it. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

grandad · Feb 29, 2004

Thanks for the picture! That must be something to operate a rig like that. Considering that you would more likely be going into some places where avalanches/slides are possible, does PennDOT have rules/procedures/training for how to operate, or do they just hand you the keys and let you have at it?

prosperity · Mar 1, 2004

Actually it is quite exciting - kind of like being a fireman or policeman involved in an emergency situation.

We have a very structured equipment training program. You must be trained and certified on every piece of equipment before operating it. The training for the snow blower is 5 days and is on the job actually working the machine.

DocHeb · Mar 1, 2004

They use similiar blowers in the U.P. (Upper Penninsula) of Michigan where they get >300" of show a year. In the cities they will blow it backward into a dump truck. In Marquette they used to dump the snow off the pier into Lake Superior, but I think the DNR made them stop the dumping there. When they are doing side streets the operator is constantly rotating the chute to try and blow the snow onto citizen's lawns, not the driveways.

yooperdave · Mar 1, 2004

These machines can become a hazzard if a good sized piece of metal or similar gets into the blower. This used to happen near Michigan Tech where some frats thought it would be "cute" to see what would happen if chuncks of metal were hidden from initial view while the City snowblower drove thru.

The police put a stop to that in short order.

Yooper Dave