Snow blower

A snow blower (also snow blower ) is a both rail and road transport ( mostly on mountain roads) inserted device with which one can move large amounts of snow and ice.

Compared to the simple snow plow the snow thrower is much more effective. When clearing snow, the snow is not pushed to the side, but milled through a blower, recorded and laterally ejected back into a large bow.

Operation

A distinction is made between devices with milling drum and blower.

Milling drum

The milling drum is a rotating roller which is mounted in front of the vehicle, and whose axis is perpendicular to the direction of travel. On the drum that goes over the entire vehicle width, slats are attached spiral that meet three tasks:

The largest standing in Austria in use snow thrower is a drum cutter which creates snow heights of 1.7 meters and a width of 2.75 meters in one operation. The drum is mounted on a front loader.

Blower

For road milling the snow is mostly taken up by a horizontal blower.

The milling in rail traffic are called snow blower. They operate at about ten inclined replaceable blades which are mounted on a parallel or transverse to the direction of the rotating drum. The first snow blowers on the railways were built around 1890 under the Patent Leslie in the United States. The wheel of Dampfschneeschleuder is powered by steam. A private drive has not Dampfschneeschleuder usually. It is pushed by a locomotive. They were used in snowy regions such as in the White Pass and Yukon Railway, on the Gotthard, Lötschberg or on the Bernina Railway. 1943 were built in Germany, the last steam snow blowers from Henschel.

In the Museum of Transport in Lucerne, built in 1896 known Xrot 100 ( Rotary ) to see the Gotthard railway, which was reactivated in 1975 for a snow clearing, as the more modern snow blowers were not due to avalanches on site. A built in 1942 by Henschel Dampfschneeschleuder can be seen in the railway museum Neustadt / wine route. The snowblower R 12, built in 1913 for the Rhaetian Railway (RhB), is currently ( early 2011 ) with a section of the steam train Furka ( DFB) in Goldau for working and should continue on the route over the Furka Pass the DFB back into use come.

Two steam snow blowers with their own drive the design Meyer 1910 and 1912 were built by the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works for the Bernina Railway. The Xrot d 9213 is held by the Rhaetian Railway even today (2011) operational, Xrot d 9214 came in 1996 at the Blonay -Chamby (BC ).

Modern rail snow blowers

The modern diesel-powered snow blower vehicles RhB, SBB, ÖBB and DB were built by Messrs. BEILHACK, which also manufactures street snowblowers, now operates under the name Aebi Schmidt Holding. According to the company's website today, the clearing capacity of up to 22,000 t / h

Small Appliances

Snow blowers, there are also a hand-held power equipment in a smaller version, similar to a two-wheel tractor, for clearing smaller areas and walkways. These devices are usually equipped with a drive shaft with highly profiled pneumatic tires and snow chains if necessary, or with a rubber track undercarriage. However, these are usually only suitable for loose powdery snow, as they can easily clog with wet snow.

Trailing cutter at groomers

In the wake of a milling machine snowcat ablated snow is not taken away, but left on the ski slope. Through the milling machine are crushed and smoothed the deep traces of crawlers greater snow and ice chunks.