Large Scale Central

Great Northern Rotary Plow at Appleyard

Prototypes
#1

I was in Wenatchee, WA on Tuesday, the 8th of November, 2016, and was speaking to my daughter’s 3rd grade class about what it was like to be in the Navy. Most of what I told them was true. Most. Anyway, her school sits on a hill over looking Appleyard, the old Great Northern division point where the electrics were taken off and steam or diesasals were put on, of vice versa. I saw this in the yard, and got as close to it as I could, to get the photo. Unfortunately, all I had with me was my phone, so the detail after enlarging is not the greatest.

Its nice to see the old equipment so well cared for.

#2

Good catch Steve. Maybe Craig can fill us in on this unit?

#3

My guess is that it replaces the Snow Dozer that was moved to Skykomish. Skykomish and Wentachee used to both have Dozers stationed. The Sky Dozer got scrapped a couple of years ago due to a rusted out center sill. My guess is that the Wenatchee Dozer got moved to Sky, and BNSf needed a replacement. So a rotary was available, so they moved it to Wenatchee.

BNSF annually produces a “Winter Readyness” plan for each winter. Years ago I found a copy laying around in the yard office and picked it up. It listed every piece of snow fighting/winter equipment location around the division. Interesting read, especially when it came to the instructions on the location and number of MOW crews needed to clean out switches around the Seattle Terminal area.

I will have to pull out my BN Motive Power annual to see how many rotarys and power units were on the roster in 1994. I’m sure it’s changed since then, but BN did a big rebuilding program to covert old covered wagons into power units.

#4

Cool!

#5

Curious that it is still marked for GN, rather than BN or BNSF. It looks freshly painted.

#6

Yea, maybe its a “heritage unit”.

#7

Steve et.all. I just went looking on Google Earth, and found it (the rotary plow ) in the Wenatchee south yard. The image date is listed as 5/7/15. So it’s been in the yard for at least a year and a half.

I think that it’s probably stationed there all the time.

47° 23’ 36.82N 120° 17’ 32.76W Copy and paste

#8

Looks like the plow is hiding behind her.

#9

Steve Featherkile said:

Curious that it is still marked for GN, rather than BN or BNSF. It looks freshly painted.

BNSF numbers, but a GN logo. BNSF has been painting old logos on random stuff recently. I think to preserve the copyright or something.

#10

Good for them. I use GN, NP, SP&S, CB&Q, and eventually, when complete, a FRISCO caboose on the end of my BNSF coal train as a heritage car. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)