A hypothetical train math problem from a cranky poster Let’s say 6” of wet snow falls on a random Wednesday- like today for example. It falls on top of 14” of wet snow that dropped the weekend before. Let’s say that the snow falls in a relatively small county of 814 square miles. How many railcars would it take to haul all of this nonsense somewhere else? Where would be a good place to ship it? Are there special rates for unit trains of white aggravation?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Ship it along the northern border (cold) to Calif (warm) where it will melt and give them some water?
As many gons as are needed to get rid of snow -
Pay for it out of your campaign contributions - from your campaign to run for Mayor....
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
While I was in Chicago 1962-1970 there were two huge snows. Santa Fe loaded gondolas to clear their Corwith yard and sent unit train loads to southern Texas where the snow was allowed to melt.
That's 1.2 billion tons of snow. At 10,000 net tons per car, that's 120,000 trains. If you ran 100 trains a day, ala Powder River coal, it would take three months to move it all out.
Even if you squished it down when you loaded it, a 10,000 net ton trains would likely be 300-400 cars long.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmanndThat's 1.2 billion tons of snow. At 10,000 net tons per car, that's 120,000 trains. If you ran 100 trains a day, ala Powder River coal, it would take three months to move it all out. Even if you squished it down when you loaded it, a 10,000 net ton trains would likely be 300-400 cars long.
I seem to recall a few years ago that Buffalo got socked with a series of lake effect snow storms - to the point that there was no land space left to pile what was being removed from the streets. There were a number of gondola trains that originated in Buffalo and were consigned to some place in South Carolina. While the trains were loaded with snow in Buffalo, by the time they got to their destination they were empty gons available for reloading.
I don't know what kind of financial arrangements were made for the trains operation.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD While the trains were loaded with snow in Buffalo, by the time they got to their destination they were empty gons available for reloading.
As I recall the story, a cold snap followed the cars south and they arrived at their destinations fully loaded... With snow. It was the Blizzard of '77.
The general rule of thumb for snow is that the water content is equal to about one tenth of the snow depth - ten inches of snow equals an inch of water. Clearly this can vary.
Actually, loading a hopper or gondola with snow can be problematic in no small part because such packed snow takes a long time to melt. Despite the fact that all of the snow has melted off at level ground here, there are still a good many snow piles where it was piled by those clearing parking lots.
If I did the math right, that snow - when melted - would amount to some 87,000 acre feet of water. An acre foot is 325,851 gallons. That county's snow, if melted, would fill 943,000 thirty thousand gallon tank cars. That's a square mile lake over 135 feet deep right to the shoreline.
Noble idea, but not feasible.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
oltmanndThat's 1.2 billion tons of snow
Russell
tree68Noble idea, but not feasible.
tree68 ... If I did the math right, that snow - when melted - would amount to some 87,000 acre feet of water. An acre foot is 325,851 gallons. That county's snow, if melted, would fill 943,000 thirty thousand gallon tank cars. That's a square mile lake over 135 feet deep right to the shoreline. ...
...
And to think that this localized and minor matter is possible with only it's meagre share of the 1/2,000,000,000th of the sun's total wattage output reaching the Earth over the same period of time it took for the water to make the clouds and then to dump their contents over the defined area. That reads, "One two-billionth"... Not too shabby for Ol' Sol, a dwarf fusing 600 million tons of atomic hydrogen into helium at its core every second of its life, now some 4.5 billion years along.
If I was a farmer and anyone tried to steal my snow they would soon be in the hoosgow for grand theft, the value of my next year's crop.
Mac
I'd remind you that the vast majority of the 814 sq miles of Minnehaha County is outside the corporate limits of Sioux Falls and is rural in character. The water that snow represents is important; we are near the boundary where farms become ranches as the land does not receive enough precipitation to reliably support most crops.
That snow is valuable right where it is! And to stay railroad related, without the corn and beans, the BNSF would have little economic reason to serve the state.
Dakguy201 I'd remind you that the vast majority of the 814 sq miles of Minnehaha County is outside the corporate limits of Sioux Falls and is rural in character. The water that snow represents is important; we are near the boundary where farms become ranches as the land does not receive enough precipitation to reliably support most crops. That snow is valuable right where it is! And to stay railroad related, without the corn and beans, the BNSF would have little economic reason to serve the state.
Murphy Siding Dakguy201 I'd remind you that the vast majority of the 814 sq miles of Minnehaha County is outside the corporate limits of Sioux Falls and is rural in character. The water that snow represents is important; we are near the boundary where farms become ranches as the land does not receive enough precipitation to reliably support most crops. That snow is valuable right where it is! And to stay railroad related, without the corn and beans, the BNSF would have little economic reason to serve the state. I think we may be a tad over the limit on that moisture thing at the moment. When the sun comes out I'll probably be able kayak most of the way home from my office to my house in the farmers' fields. The weather sure hasn't slowed the flow of grain and ethanol on the BNSF. It seems like traffic is way up from just a couple of weeks back.
I think we may be a tad over the limit on that moisture thing at the moment. When the sun comes out I'll probably be able kayak most of the way home from my office to my house in the farmers' fields. The weather sure hasn't slowed the flow of grain and ethanol on the BNSF. It seems like traffic is way up from just a couple of weeks back.
Doesn't excess ground water in your area eventually end up recharging the Ogalla Aquifer to some degree.
BaltACDDoesn't excess ground water in your area eventually end up recharging the Ogalla Aquifer to some degree.
diningcar While I was in Chicago 1962-1970 there were two huge snows. Santa Fe loaded gondolas to clear their Corwith yard and sent unit train loads to southern Texas where the snow was allowed to melt.
They had mounted a jet motor onto some type of maintenance vehicle, and they used for clearing yard switches. It worked great--for the switch it was actually working on. However, the snow that was blown from the switch had to go somewhere (like maybe another switch ). And the snow that didn't get blown out just melted in place, and guess what happened when the hot jet motor went away....
zardozThey had mounted a jet motor onto some type of maintenance vehicle,
There have been several examples of jet engines used for snow removal. NYC had at least one. I would opine that they will work better if they don't melt the snow, but merely blow it out of the switch.
tree68 zardoz They had mounted a jet motor onto some type of maintenance vehicle, There have been several examples of jet engines used for snow removal. NYC had at least one. I would opine that they will work better if they don't melt the snow, but merely blow it out of the switch.
zardoz They had mounted a jet motor onto some type of maintenance vehicle,
zardoz And the snow that didn't get blown out just melted in place, and guess what happened when the hot jet motor went away....
And the snow that didn't get blown out just melted in place, and guess what happened when the hot jet motor went away....
Around 1960 UP tried using a steam locomotive (may have even been 844) as a snow melter, with similar results. That experiment ended quickly.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Murphy SidingYeah, I have a neighbor with one of those leaf blowers....
Military (and possibly civilian) airfields have tow-behind blowers. I've never seen one in action, so I don't know what the parameters are for their use (light snow, leftovers from plowing, etc). They also use big sweepers, but they have the advantage (over roadway maintenance) of driving whatever speed they need, vs trying to keep traffic moving.
oltmannd That's 1.2 billion tons of snow. At 10,000 net tons per car, that's 120,000 trains. If you ran 100 trains a day, ala Powder River coal, it would take three months to move it all out. Even if you squished it down when you loaded it, a 10,000 net ton trains would likely be 300-400 cars long.
In what kind of car does one haul 10,000 tons of anything?
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
FWIW, I got about 120 million* tons of snow, which would reduce most of those numbers to 1/10th of what's stated.
*Assume Murphy's 6" + 14" = 20" snow reduces to 2" of water - a common 10:1 ratio - which it may not, because it's "wet". But anyway, since 2" = 0.17 ft.:
814 sq. mi. x 5,280 ft./mi x 5,280 ft./mi. x 0.17 ft. = a lot of cubic feet.
All those cubic feet x 62.4 lbs./cu. ft. (density of water) / 2,000 lbs./ton = 120 million tons, +/-.
Still a heckuva lot of white stuff or water, whichever it is. Mother Nature is pretty powerful!!! ("+1" to Selector's post, too.)
- PDN.
CShaveRR In what kind of car does one haul 10,000 tons of anything?
A very very strong one with lots and lots of wheels.
However, I bet slack action would be a bit of a problem.
Please send all the snow to Colorado! We have had the warmest and driest winter in memory...wildfires are already a major problem.
Zardoz, you're absolutely right about the jet blower (those were fairly common on northeastern railroads, by the way). They would clean packed snow right down to, and often including, the ballast. We'd check our switches in the yard afterwards, but what we couldn't see did often wind up hurting the operation, so if they wanted in to our yard, we'd send them away. The calrods usually kept up with things for us.We did have one year where nothing could keep up with the snow. I remember a Jordan spreader breaking down on one of the north-side tracks and beng stuck there for a while (must have been a reason it couldn't be moved when it failed). They also tried some sort of snow-blowing device--highway grade--on the back lead, and it didn't even make it up the hill before breaking down. First and last time I ever saw that one. I believe that that was the year we didn't get track 49 back until spring--it was a track that was used for snow off adjacent tracks.Thre were times when our supervisors (GYM and up) would tell us to throw the switches to keep them operational when the snow was falling heavily. No...it was just a way to bring the failures out where they would be found--by us if they were lucky, by a rolling freight car if they weren't. The calrods did their work, and throwing the switches didn't make it happen any faster. My method was to throw a switch as close as possible to the time I needed it. If it failed, I'd repeat the operation a time or two to hopefully knock some ice off the point or stock rail; if I couldn't get a good indication, the maintainers would be called over with their spiked-end brooms.
We don't often have to deal with ops in the snow (not that we don't get snow) - mostly around Polar, and then only the station switch.
Did an equipment move once after a snowfall - made the mistake of throwing the switch before I cleaned out the snow. It packed in very well, thank you. Had a broom, but not a switch broom. Finally got it over and made the move.
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