Railroaders' Nostalgia > Snow busting?

Hello railroaders, couple of questions from not a railroader.  The posts about the snowbound Empire Builder got me wondering.

If you were running and saw a deep drift ahead, and you had sufficient distance to stop before you hit it, how deep would it need to be for you to decide to stop instead of plow through it?

Second question, if you saw the same oh-sh**-depth drift, but didn't have enough distance to stop, would you still try to slow down, or just keep going?

 

       I would assume this would be on a busy main line from your post. Therefore the snow most likely would have come down rapidly and would not have fallen and then had an opportunity to  thaw partially and freeze. If so it would be 'fluff' or similar. If that is true, continue on. If you believe it is plowable and you slow down or try to stop, you could find yourself stuck in it. Where do you want to be ?

The problem with the situation on the Builder is that there was a string of cars parked next to the main. On one hand, they probably prevented the snow drift from being worse. But on the other, you don't want to pack a bunch of snow between your train and the one adjacent. Pretty easy to lift off the rail if the snow has nowhere to go.

Couple time where I have encountered drifts I went right to Notch 8 and stayed on the horn hoping to keep it cleared. Got through them and one was the height of the headlight. In my 41 years I have been snowbound twice on low speed Secondary track..