Source: The Daily Mining Journal, Marquette, MI
March 8, 1890 - Saturday, p. 8 c. 2
PWPL Micro Film Reel 16

Arches of Flying Snow

At seven o'clock Monday morning a representative of the
Mining Journal boarded the DSS&A's big rotary snow plow up by
the roundhouse with Supt. Philbin, Mr. Larke, the general
managers' secretary and C. D. Cole the photographer of the
expedition, The work ahead of the rotary was the clearing
of blockaded side tracks between Marquette and Negaunee
wye and a portion of the Marquette & Western R. R. at
Eagle Mills. a “.'+ Ms Meehan, , traveling engineer
of the South Shore road, was in general charge, while the
pilot, Allen Cowden, a railroad veteran of 19 upper
peninsula winter and who remembers how they used to put
the rolling stock in sheds and suspend operations until
spring on the MHRO after the road was once fully covered
by a blizzard - together with John Stull and George
La Liberty, the regular engineer and fireman of the
rotary, completed the list of those on board. The motive
power was furnished by engine no. 101.

At Grand View the famous blockade lifter found her first
job and in t minutes had cleared a siding which would
have occupied the attention of 100 shovelers for a full
day. The snow was not simply shoved to one side, as is
done by the huge wing plow, known to the boys on the line
as "McGinty'" but was fired bodily from the right of
way, even where embankments intervened. The lying snow
formed a huge arch, dazzling the eyes in the bright
sunshine, while the big knives ate through the drifts so
rapidly that it kept the photographer and his numerous
assistants on the jump to keep far enough ahead to make
exposures. ''The whole landing was covered from three to
six feet in depth."

The next piece of track needing attention was Bagdad
Siding, 1,610 feet long. This was cleared as expediously
as the first, the hood being shifted but the stream of
snow was shifted to the other side. But it was at Eagle
Mills that the big plow had a chance to show what she was
really built for. After clearing off the main line and the
M&W tragk the plow was headed down the latter line to
clear about a quarter of a mile of track. Here the three
days of snow fall had as a foundation the accumulation of the
entire winter, the track has not been in use since
navigation closed.
2 Flying Arches, March 8, 1890

 

Next to the rails the snow was packed and hardened into ice
and altogether it made as pretty a test as could be desired.
The pilot sounded the whistle on the rotary, engine 101

answered the signal and put on steam, jangle went the bell
signal from the roatry's pilot to her engineer. The great
steel knives began their mad whirl and she was into it.

Some of the sightseers had climbed onto the deck of the
rotary where they could watch the furious torrent of snow as
it rushed upward into the air; the others stood with Pilot
Cowden and watched the fun through the heavy glass windows
on either side of the hood. Faster and faster went the
engines of the rotary until the roar of the whirling knives
and the great spurs and cogs by which they are driven was
deafening, 50 feet, 100 feet,120 feet flew the snow and ice,
the heavy stuff on the bottom going the fartherest, some
times 70 or & feet the other side of the right of way

fence. It was a grand sight to watch the huge arch extending
from the rotary's hood up toward the adjoining fields.

Finally the plow was stopped and run back a little
distance. The crowd tumbled out and Mr. Cole assumed
command. A good scene it was for a photographer too, a
canal cut in snow with sides and end as perpendicular and
even as brich walls. The photographer marshalled his
subjects up this lane and placed them against the nine foot
wall of snow which formed the-end and which was packed
hard enough to resist any ordinary shovels. Meehan turned
his most melting smile on the snowy wall on his side, Stull
tiied to looknine feet tall, at the end of the cut Larke
paced gracefully in a corner and the journalist sat on a
block of snow like patience on a monument, smiling at the
approach of the dinner hour. This little formality
attended to the procession moved on and the rotary ate her
way out to the crossing which had been selected as the end of
the rotary's contract. The snow and ice which she had cut
on this piece of track was between nine and ten feet high on
the level. When she had left any kind of a train could
have backed in there easily. At Eagle Mills station Frank
Rockwell met the outfit with his blandest smile and
extending a box of cigars while Mr. Langley,. also of the
#. W. Read Co., extended the freedom of the town.

The plow went into Negaunee and lifted from nine to
twenty feet of snow across the track at the Rolling Mill
mine. The universal verdict was that the South Shore's
rotary is "just a whale."

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ASSKA Ry.
Work Bquipzent