Hey Magnus,
If you ever want to see Wyoming first hand, look me up. I live in Douglas which is in the Central Eastern Part of the State. I would be glad to answer any questions you have about Wyoming, tourist destinations, travel precautions, paces of interest, ect.
 lvanhen wrote: |
| My understanding is that the snow fences were primarily a UP thing.![Cool [8D]](/trccs/emoticons/icon_smile_cool.gif) |
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Those snow fenses might have been designed by the UP, but they are EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are placed where ever experience and logic have shown that snow has a tendency to drift up. And having driven through some pretty nasty WY blizzards, even they still miss a few spots.
Two stories about Wyoming blizzards. Over Easter Vacation in April of 1999, we were traveling from Newcastle to Lander to visit my father. He had accepted a new job in Lander in February and we finished the school year and moved down that Summer. However we got to Wright, and started having problems with our van. Since dad at the time was an automotive service manager, he said it is probably a plugged fuel filter so we found a mechanic got the filter swaped out and that fixed the problem for a while. We got a through Casper and past Hell's Half Acre (Movie buffs might recognise that as the place where the first Starship Troopers Movie was filmed) and it started acting up again. Of course our luck the snow had been flying since we went through Midwest-Edgerton and now things were really bleak. We managed to limp into Shoshoni and call my dad, and from there proceeded to limp into Riverton where he met us. But things were pretty scarey because we were putting up with this through White Out conditions. I had to squint aweful hard and occasionaly tell my mom to adjust left or right to stay out of the oncoming lane or the ditch.
Things ended OK. We didn't get to bed until about 3 a.m. (We had originally thought we would make lander about 7 p.m.) Turns out the real problem was about 1/4-3/8 inch of sediment in the gas tank. Apparently on this model of van the gas tank has a clean out hole and it hadn't been tightened allthe way at the factory. So over the years moisture and dirt and junk managed to seep through the cap and leave a fine grain mud in the bottom the the tank, the mud had finally built up thick eneugh that it was being circulated through the fuel pump and fuel filters. Of course we didn't find this out until we were on our way to an airshow the following august and we blew out a fuel pump on the way up and on the way back.
The second blizzard story happened to me last March. I had just moved into my new apartment. My first morning on the way to work, It was snowing really bad. White out conditions, slick roads black ice. just bad ju ju all around. This was before we got our van so all of us that worked for Rail Link were still car pooling. Me and my car pool buddy Jason decided to leave a half hour earlier because of the storm and glad we did. We made it to work on time, the rest of our crew was late. But as things turned out. it didn't really matter. We faught our way through the snow to get changed out. and afterwards everything just sat were it was. Finally at 11:00 I was told to tie my train down as the roads were being closed and the mine was sending all non essential personal home. Due to mine requirments Rail Link was required to keep three people on hand incase for some reason a train needed to be moved. Since my car pool buddy was still on his probationary period and not elegible for his 40 hr work week garantee, and I was his car pool buddy we drew the short straws and got to stay overnight in the luxurous accomodations of the Rail Link office. From what I heard later Im glad I did. The people that got sent home had to drive through driving winds. Buck through snow drifts even where there were snow fences. deal with ice. From what I was told if they weren't sliding on Ice, they were trying to punch through drifts. While I was comparibly safe and warm sleeping on the office floor. Though I can say to anyone, Don't ever try to play Risk on the computer for 10 hours straight. It will fry your brain. The next day after the storm was passed, It was fun trying to untie my train. The snow had piled up 4 feet deep,and I had to shovel the walk ways clear of snow so I could get inside the cab. Im just glad thats all I had to do. Everyone else got to dig through 4 feet of snow and and clean out switches. While I was nice in cozy in my SD90/43 MAC.
Hope you enjoyed the read.
James