Fellow Railfans, this one is a must for your collection of RR videos!  If the contents of this DVD do not excite you, then you had better check for a pulse.

The location is Donner Pass, where the Union Pacific RR crosses the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the time is late March of 2011.  There has been record snowfall and more snow is coming down.  The battle to keep the rails cleared of snow so that trains can get through is being lost.

At Donner Pass the order of battle is to first deploy the flangers, which are rail cars with belly blades to plow the snow.  The flangers cannot push the snow very far and become ineffective when the snow gets very deep.

When the flangers cannot get the job done, the Jordan spreaders are then deployed.  These machines have enclosed cabs and sport huge front-mounted blades that can be adjusted to throw the snow to either side.  They also have retractable wings that work in conjunction with the blades to push the snow even further from the tracks.  The spreaders are pushed along by trailing locomotives.  For the vast majority of winters, the Jordan speaders are able to keep the rails cleared.

Last to be deployed in the order of battle are the rotary snow plows.  Very rarely a winter will come along in which the snow depth exceeds the capability of the spreaders, and then it is time to call out the rotary snow plows.  In this video we see the rotaries put into service for the first time since 1998, the first time in thirteen years!  What a rare treat!

The rotaries are nothing short of amazing in their ability to remove snow and watching them in operation as they throw snow high into the air is a joy to behold.  We see them in this video clearing snow that appears to be all the way up to the cab.

We are taken inside the cab to ride along with the crew and we are also shown spectacular scenes from outside the rotary as it eats its way through the deep snow.  There are some great night scenes.

You simply cannot go wrong by adding this one to your collection.   This is probably going to be the video that I share with you guys the next time I am scheduled for entertainment but don’t wait for that; get one ordered for yourself.   I promise you, you will watch it over and over again.