non-Monon question about Lafayette snow plow

[John Butler]

When I was at Purdue from 1993-1997 I was convinced there was a rotary snowplow in the yard near shops.  As I drove over 52 I thought could see it.  But I never got a closer look.  Was there ever a rotary snowplow (post Monon) at Lafayette?

[George Lortz]

John,

At one time in the 1980s or 1990s there was an L&N-lettered snowplow parked at the north end of the Lafayette yards.  I took a lot of photos of it inside and out and they are here (somewhere).

At any rate, it was not a rotary snowplow.  It was a stationary blade type and was fabricated out of what once was a passenger car.  The car insides were gutted and there was a huge bunker filled with concrete installed in the inside middle of the car - probably to add needed weight to the car for plowing work.

My recollection (without seeing the photos) is that it was painted boxcar red.

George L.

[Ron Marquardt]

George is correct, and if memory serves right, I wasn't there but heard via the grapevine that it plowed covered hoppers and box cars as well as it did snow, perhaps even better.  Anyone know the details of that incident that happened over on the Air Line?  / Ron

[Craig Myers]

I asked my dad what he could remember and he said they were plowing up towards Medaryville.  There were some cars shoved out towards the main at the elevator and they couldn't tell how close they were getting with the snow coming off the plow and ran into them.  He thought it happened in the early 80's.

If you see pictures of the plow you can tell if it was before or after the wreck.  When the plow was new it had a long point sticking out of the bottom and after it was rebuild the long point was gone.  For a very short time the plow had a shark face painted on it.

Craig Myers

[Gene Remaly]

I have some Instamatic photos of the plow at MP B-125.7  ---- all I gotta do is find them--I think it was prior to 77-78.  Also, there is a Cookie picture of it just past the North yard limit at Laf.
It was neat watching it work, but didn't hold a candle to Mr. Benham's seven unit lash-up. There was a high nose GP on the point (foreign road) with six pushers. It went SB late afternoon as the sun was low on the horizion, making the biggest rainbow I've ever seen when he hit the cut about a 1/2 mile South of town.  All I could do was stand there and watch !I heard that every thing on the front of the engine was destroyed- head lights, hand rails, window glazing, steps, air piping--  I think they sent it to Georgia to thaw out before they could repair it

[Robert Wheeler]

Tallking about snow on the Michigan Branch reminds me of a news clipping in a library around Indianapolis. -- I don't remember just which one but likely suspects are either INSL or INHS.

The picture was the front of one of the non F3 and not RS2 units. It was covered with snow including the running boards with snow. Included in the pix was the engineer, AR Manne. Apparently the locomotive had been on #57 which Ross was on for a while.

I have no writtten record its just from memory of multiple library visits over the years.

[Rick Dreistadt]

I have a photo around here someplace of the cab of an SD40-2 which hit a snowdrift around Rensselaer.  The front windows broke out and covered the cab with snow.  John Pickle was the engineer.  He told me the only thing that saved him was that he was pinned in the engineers seat upright.  If he had been knocked to the floor first, he would have suffocated.
Rick