Western Railroad Discussion > Some Answers for Flanger Operations

There have been quite a few questions lately about flanger operations in the Cascades and Sierra Nevada.

I remembered that there are at least 3 rail videos that have been produced which deal with snow fighting on the railroads. These would be pretty good sources of information for flanger, spreader, and rotary operations, especially for those of you who live well out of the western snow areas and aren't able to see the equipment at work.

I think "Battle For Donner Pass" has some footage of Jim "The Bear" Mahon leading his men at work in the Sierra. "Snow on the Run" is an older video, probably from the 50's, but was interesting to see. Seems to me it showed steam power running the snow removal equipment. I don't know anything about "Winter Rails Over Donner," but I believe it is a newer video.

For those who are interested, you can insert any of these titles into an Internet search engine or check the listings of the rail video producers to see who has them for sale.


Battle For Donner Pass
Snow on the Run
Winter Rails Over Donner

My $0.02 on that: the 'Battle for Donner Pass' from Pentrex shows the last gasp of the SP style Rotaries, Spreaders and Flangers. There might be a short clip of the old days but the bulk of the 2 hour presentation makes this the best and most interesting in the general sense. I've loaned out my copies to non-RF types and they've sat through it a number of times just to catch it all. Must be something about orange snow-plows.

Next on my list is these guys: http://www.donnerrails.com/videoproducts/index.shtml they have three related DVD's that are the equivalent of the mindless runby style that shows a huge amount of raw information to the 'devoted' snow hounds. They have a camera mounted to the cab window of a GP-38 for a flanger set and they run through a loop from Truckee to the Fulda Balloon and back, with cab chatter in the background. Another DVD shows the flanger run at night, multiple cameras with lots of cab discussion, then a third DVD shows Spreader Operations during a daytime clean-up. The Mahon segment is in the Spreader DVD, with other SP faces and some background on the Norden buildings.

Apparently the original intent of the production(a) and open access was to document the efforts for the UPRR. I don't have the details on that.
Another qualifier is that the operations out of Dunsmuir, Klamath Falls and Oakridge are run differently than Donner. Another point is that the Stevens Pass operation on the BN is again different, most other Ops are different, which is another interesting aspect of snow operations.

So far as I'm aware, there's a lot more documentation on snow fighting over Donner than anywhere else. I'd be interested in winter snow-fighting videos of the Oregon Cascades, the Blues, Stevens, and Stampede, but I haven't seen anything of the sort. Pentrex et al. seem to have time to focus on California, while the rest of the West Coast only gets occasional zip-through visits.

Good point, not sure where the next most common snow clearing activity would be. I went to Stevens Pass during a big storm during the BN years, we went into the Restaurant in Skykomish for some coffee and the BN snow plow crew was talking about how much bigger the show was on Donner Pass. Before that I thought the Canadians had the edge (actually we were headed for the Fraser River Canyon on that trip) with their left hand and right hand snow wedges, wrong again. Last year's Rotary event in the mid-west was big time as well. Seems to me that Donner gets the high-mileage award because the Flanger's also act as a patrol in some very inaccessible areas.

While we're on the topic here's an interesting website for contemporary snow Ops in the Oregon Cascades: http://spcascades.railfan.net/snow.html

WR-44 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There have been quite a few questions lately about
> flanger operations in the Cascades and Sierra
> Nevada.
>
> I remembered that there are at least 3 rail videos
> that have been produced which deal with snow
> fighting on the railroads. These would be pretty
> good sources of information for flanger, spreader,
> and rotary operations, especially for those of you
> who live well out of the western snow areas and
> aren't able to see the equipment at work.
>
> I think "Battle For Donner Pass" has some footage
> of Jim "The Bear" Mahon leading his men at work in
> the Sierra. "Snow on the Run" is an older video,
> probably from the 50's, but was interesting to
> see. Seems to me it showed steam power running
> the I don't know anything about "Winter Rails
> Over Donner," but I believe it is a newer video.
>
> For those who are interested, you can insert any
> of these titles into an Internet search engine or
> check the listings of the rail video producers to
> see who has them for sale.
>
>
> Battle For Donner Pass
> Snow on the Run
> Winter Rails Over Donner

The only one I have is "Battle for Donner Pass", but I will echo the above comments. This is truly an outstanding video!! I personally got to see the flangers at work this past weekend from a private car tacked on behind Amtrak #6 on Saturday and was on the VERY LATE #5 Sunday night with "Pullman" and "AgentAtascadero". The return trip definitely was an adventure.

Kent in Carmel Valley

Regards snow fighting, it's obviously all about the weather factor, and Donner could be the US/Canada all time champ for weather, be it one storm or an entire season. So, in railroading, it may truely be the biggest/best "snowfight" in the land. And Dynamic Brake is correct, our crossing on #5 Sunday was a Winter Spectacular, with flanger and spreader action and near bilzzard conditions, yet still nothing like a Big Donner storm. But it was by far the best I've experienced. Sad, but I guess Mahan had no son who went to RRing, and I do not think Mike was the first "Bear". AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

TCnR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> While we're on the topic here's an interesting
> website for contemporary snow Ops in the Oregon
> Cascades: http://spcascades.railfan.net/snow.html


I need to update that webpage. I have a lot of footage from spreading and flanging in 2004, and 2006.

YM