# Rotary Snow Plow



## Lawrence (Dec 27, 2007)

Who makes a rotary snow plow, with plenty of power, that cuts thru ice packed snow for my garden railroad?
I'm tired of lower back pain when I have to push the wedge plow along with the loco.
Hopefully, this unit will have enough width cutting area so the cars will clear the sides of the 
snow cuts.
I'm willing to pay a reasonable price for same.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

Who makes a rotary snow plow, with plenty of power, that cuts thru ice packed snow 
Lawrence, 

While I sympathize with your back, I don't think a model plow can have enough power to cut through what we got yesterday (near DC.) 

What you have to do is what the real railroad does - keep running trains all night long to stop the drifts forming. You need to run your wedge plow around the layout once every hour. (!) 

[Best of luck!]


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## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By Lawrence on 20 Dec 2009 10:51 AM 
Who makes a rotary snow plow, with plenty of power, that cuts thru ice packed snow for my garden railroad?


No one does









If you want what you are describing, you'll have to make one yourself or find a custom builder willing to make one for you. And even then it likely won't be able to tackle packed ice. We can build everything to scale, but the snow is always going to be 1:1 scale.


The typical design seems to use a vacuum impeller attached to a drill motor hooked up to either the more preferred battery power or track power. Track powered trains do not operate well when there is ice on the rails, so that's why I mention battery powered plows as the preferred method. And if you want to try plowing ice packed snow you will need a metal impeller. These are very hard to find. And vacuum impellers are not exactly the best shape or design to plow snow.



USA Trains does make a rotary snow plow. And the blade does spin via a small on board motor. It works off of track power. Very neat model. But as it is from the factory, it will not plow ice packed snow at all. It doesn't even work all that spectacular in fluffy powder. It is ideally suited for staged photos and not for actual snow plowing use. Like this photo of our USA Train rotary plow:












Our USA Trains rotary has recently been "pimped" so to speak by Jonathan Bliese of Electric & Steam Modelworks. He installed a more powerful Accucraft motor, on board battery power, Phoenix sound, and Airwire control. Great operating accessory. But it doesn't look like we'll get to test her out in the real stuff this year. So far it appears that I won't be able to get away from work long enough this winter season to travel to our layout in Colorado. I live and work in California for most of the year.


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Lawrence:

I've responded to your private email.


The answer for others is similar to Pete and Matt's. There is nothing commercially available that I know about. The ones that I know about are all custom and will not work on wet snow or ice. Mine works best with dry powder no deeper than 3 inches, preferably 1 inch or so. 

Chuck


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

I've been making one, go over to the modeling forum.


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## audi84 (Jan 13, 2008)

Jerry 
What modeling forum?? 

Noel One


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## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By audi84 on 20 Dec 2009 04:21 PM 
Jerry 
What modeling forum?? 

Noel One 
Here's a link to Jerry's awesome UP rotary:

UP Rotary


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## audi84 (Jan 13, 2008)

WOW !! Somekind of big, Jerry I see what you mean ! How do you shrink it down??? OH, by the way, I hate that 4 letter word.......SNOW, spent two winters in Korea, one in Labrador, Greenland and Iceland, and 3 in Germany...Nuf said 
audi84, Noel One


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

More snow is forecast for Wed, hope it works out but they are saying freezing rain first, so that could mess that up.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Some people have made pretty effective ones:














I can't find the one I want, someone made a blower with 2 turbine blades, and ran it down his driveway, it seemed to work great.

Regards, Greg


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Greg

Dual Rotary snow plow[/b]


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Dang! It was so long ago, I forgot it was our very own illustrious RayMan!










Regards, Greg


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## cape cod Todd (Jan 3, 2008)

Wow that duel rotary is neat looking, like something out of star wars. 
When up against ice I don't think there are too many scale rotary's that could cut through which got me thinking why not melt it. Build a car with a blowtorch set up on it. You could make it look like a boiler. Then build a funnel for the torch flame to keep it directed forward and it will also radiate the heat better. The "only" trouble (yeah right) would be refreezing of the melted ice and does anyone know if plastic track ties would melt before the ice ???? I'm sure those are not the only problems but it sounds like fun to try it. ...... It almost seems like something tha could have been built back in 1870. 
You know something in retrospect unless we lived in the land of star wars this probably wouldn't work.. 
Do love those rotary's though. 
T


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