Here in Chicago we don’t let a little snow shut down the whole joint but with the current situation in Buffalo that’s an whole different kettle of fish. During normal circumstances of snow in Chicago we drive through it without slowing down while waiting for various implements to move it out of the way. That can be done in several ways. An F-250 with a Western blade? Smoking two stroke Ariens? Blah blah blah…those don’t sound very exciting. The following methods and machines that deal with snow are the exciting stuff. Mankind always seems to come up with mechanical means to best battle the elements that mother nature heaves at us. These are some of our favorites:
Railroads have a big job with miles and miles of track to clear. Rights of way are often through cuts and valleys, prime targets for drifts. Huge rotary snow throwers pick it up and toss it aside as though it was packing peanuts. A more brute force method is giant vee plows and a couple locomotives just ramming through the snow. Imagine being at the controls of one of these, blasting through snow not being able to see the tracks, and hoping you don’t hit something solid frozen under the snow.
I’m a big fan of Cub Cadets. The pre 1981 machines were still made by International Harvester and had a catalog of implements. The snow blade, with tire chains and as many wheel weights as you could stack on them was always one of my favorites.
Too cold outside? No worries, that’s covered. An RC snowblower-slash-snowplow is just the ticket. Enjoy your Swiss Miss from your Barcalounger and clear the driveway.
Lastly we have something that may not be entirely safe, but is entirely BangShift approved. A valveless pulsejet engine in a wheelbarrow melts the snow, as well as blowing it out of the way. No moving parts solves the pulling the recoil rope 87 times before it broke conundrum. Another bonus is it seems to really piss of the neighbors and scare small dogs.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go downstairs and kick the smoking two stroke Ariens for being so boring.
This Chevy V8 powered snow blower out of Canada is the bomb! Throws snow 126′!
http://www.chonday.com/Videos/snowblowvch1
“Scared” dogs and Englishmen.
geez weird for me watching this at the moment…in the middle of an Aussie heatwave, its 44 degrees outside (111.2 F) and I’m under a 2.5 hp aircond going flat out and it aint coping…not as dumb as yesterday, same temp and I was working on the car outside…