Wyoming Snow & Ice Are No Match For Wyoming Diesel

After that last big snow, our streets have been piled with whatever the snow plows could push aside.

We could wait for it all to melt. But that much snow will take a while.

So let's line it up, then suck it up off the roads.

This is actually quite a mechanized process.

What did we do before these machines?

Just put up with it I guess.

STEP 1

Let's send the road graders in.

The first one pushes the snow out towards the middle of the road.

The second one pushes the snow into the middle.

That makes a nice long line for the machine that is to follow.

Snow that piled naturally or was pushed by snow plows makes high mounds on the sides of the road.

That gets compacted down into hard snow packs and ice.

It would take man men many days to shovel all of that out by hand.

Good thing we live in the day and age where we can just send up a big diesel-powered machine to push it where we want it.

STEP 2.

Bring Forth The Snow EATER!

I'm sure that is NOT what is called. But I like it.

Spinning blades draw the snow toward the center of the scoop.

From there it's conveyed up and shot out.

Notice it takes a moment for this machine to catch up to the dump truck.

The first couple of shots is off.

Not enough snow is running through the system yet so a lot gets splashed on the side of the truck.

You might also notice that the truck has its plow down.

That driver is in the long line of machines making sure the snow is lined up.

You can see another dump truck coming up behind to grab the next load of snow.

Almost got it.

This process actually takes just a few seconds and then there is enough snow shooting out to make it into the trucks.

One truck is filled quickly.

They drive down to the Platte River, near downtown Casper, to dump their load in an empty field.

There are mountains of snow down there, melting into the river.

There we go.

That truck will be filled in no time.

This brings me back to my original question.

What did we do before we had these big machines?

It must have been hard to get around as we waited for all this stuff to melt.