@OBAMFSpike could propably just have a spring loaded wall on the truck, go 5kph with the train to 'ram' into the wall getting it all off within 10 seconds.. just sayin
I think a hot water pressure washer would have been faster. The high pressure cutting chucks of ice and snow off, with the water melting things away off the blade.
Having worked as a mechanic on similar jet engines with the CNR.They were meant to blow snow from railroad switches in rail yards.They were not used as an ice melter. They are extremely fast at clearing snow..
Having shoveled snow there's a thing called a "shovel" you and use it with your hands. I can just imagine when I was a kid me backing up a CNR on someone's driveway for 5 hours. What you said makes sense. This is simply asinine. LAZY AF!
@@DJaquithFL yeah, so how much time do you plan to spend on several hundred square (kilo)meters...? And once you've moved to the second switch to clean, do you expect the first switch to just choose to not re-freeze while you are working on the other switches...? Will all the switches and tracks be usable by trains before the night when everything will be covered in snow and ice again...? Imagine, they'd use shovels to get snow off the switches and tracks in Siberia or Alaska... Good luck with that. ua-cam.com/video/CY3AcSYRyDo/v-deo.html
@@Hgdhgfdssxvbbnjoo .. Please I lived in Chicago 50 years ago I made over $300 in an afternoon hand shoveling snow. Not to mention snowmobiling in the UP and northern Wisconsin.
So, Canadian guy here who has done some snow removal with front-end loaders. Detachable buckets are great, partly because they can be left outside at ambient cold temperatures while the rest of the machine is parked inside a warm building so it starts easily and the glass stays clear. I hope they were able to leave the plow to cool down for a couple of hours after heating that much steel with a jet engine before needing to push more snow with it. Otherwise, about 10 minutes into pushing snow it would probably have been about right back where they started.
@ nobody said anything about being an expert. They burned a jet engine for an hour to get ice off of a plow. Yes, that is obviously inefficient. Especially when you consider the locomotive pushing that plow creates enough heat that just escapes into the atmosphere to probably keep the plow warm the whole time it's being used, thus no ice pack. Just because you can't think of a way to make it happen, doesn't mean it wouldn't be the more efficient solution.
Fun fact. Nobody reads video descriptions. If they did there wouldn't be a 100 comments talking about how inefficient this is, like it was designed for this purpose. This unit is used for the switches. The blade had a mechanical failure and needed to be worked on so the snow had to come off and they used what was available to them. Read description for more info.
I used to think this or that segment of American society was at the bottom of the food chain - But the modern crop of railfan foamers as demonstrated in this comments section is the stupidest group of people in the history of man. Some kind of weird sideways out cropping of dumb people becoming dumber. Stay with your plastic models and mom's computer there boys, anything like real railroading is beyond the scope of your simple comprehension.
The truck would not 'take off'. That engine is being used as a gas generator (it generates a stream of hot gasses) which does not make any appreciable thrust. To get thrust, you need to install a jet nozzle behind the turbine. The nozzle accelerates the air stream, generating thrust.
Oh for goodness sake, just heat the blade from behind to bust the attachment layer. You don’t need to melt all the ice, just a very thin layer where it’s attached.
Thank you! This is an engineering fail. Don't drink and engineer! I was thinking of a burner system on the back side of the blade. Maybe electric heating elements would work. Yes, the whole mess would slide off in minutes. Not an hour. Geez. That jet engine is wasted on that application. It should be driving a pump in a pipeline somewhere.
this isn't a typical procedure, that truck was designed to clear snow from switches, the plows don't usually need the snow melted off, these guys were just using what they had available in a pinch
I read the whole description. If the engine was fully functional, could just move all of the plow joints to knock the snow off from where it matters. But the engine has a pneumatic problem. There are many ways to get the snow off. This machine that clears ice from switches was handy, so they used it. There are many attachments for heavy equipment that could handle the task much faster, but they didn't have any of them handy. They could have knocked the big hunks off with a backhoe. Then used a rotary brush like they use to clear ice and snow from sidewalks. Or a dozen other ways depending on whatever was available.
@Dick Little there are plenty of heating elements that would do the job. If the blade were designed from the start to have heating elements within it, that would work. Retrofitted heating elements would also work, despite your objections.
They get the Dumb Fuck award... Just put heating on the plow face. Far less muss and fuss. Hell the train itself has gobs of excess heat, just pipe it over...
Everyone seems to forget that that jet clearing device was designed to clear switches which it does quite well. That was most likely frozen blocks of snow with mixed material in it on that blade - more or less frozen cement. Picks would have damaged the plow’s blade. The jet’s exhaust more or less melted all that from the inside out as you saw the stuff fall off the blade as opposed to melting from the surface down.
Actually the ice and snow is not exactly just melted, because of SUBLIMATION it vanishes - The basis of the success and worldwide patents from the equipment and process
That was, kind of, my thought too...why not run extensions from the plows/locomotives engine cooling system to imbedded pipes in the plowing shield? Even if you get the shield "heated" up to only just above freezing, it will be enough for the snow to not stick...
I agree with you on that. I read the word snow in some posts by mistake I believe. No chance. Snow would have been blown away. But that was one big tough block of ice. But like many I thought it would be gone 10 minutes tops.
Jet engines are designed to produce speed, not heat - the heat is a byproduct and it doesn't stick around. They're great at blowing loose snow out of switches, apparently, but not melting boulders.
I think that instead they should have used a couple hundred hand-warmer chemical packs. It's so much more efficient than, say... a couple buckets of hot water.
@@-watermelonking just because they're getting "old" doesn't mean you don't take care of it. I take every console my wife and I have apart atleast once a year to clean them out and if the heat sink is clogged, it's a good time to replace the thermal paste. Both mine and my wife's PS4 are whisper quiet a run cool. My step son on the other hand, I gave him everything to clean and fix his PS4 because it's so loud it would keep the neighbors up but he never bothers. 20 min is to much of his gaming time I guess. Rather sit and wait crash after crash and lose game play and bitch that it runs slow. 🤷♂️
Would’ve loved to see the budget meeting for this thing. I feel like a propane torch or a small excavator could’ve done this in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. Or maybe just some chemical deicer? That machine had to cost upwards of a million dollars.
According to another commenter that allegedly has/had worked for BNSF, that truck only burns about 25 gallons of JP8 in that time, and another commenter said that normally they would just use some method of heating the blade, and that the truck is only used to thaw switches in normal service but they already had the truck there and needed to detach the blade because the heating thingy didn't work and couldn't detach it while snow is still stuck to it.
I tried to find out exactly what type of jet engine is on that truck, but couldn't find any reliable info on it. It is likely a small turbojet engine off of an old military aircraft, or a turboshaft engine like those used in helicopters or APUs, as it doesn't seem to produce much thrust. On top of that, going by the sound, it doesn't seem to be running anywhere near its maximum design speed, so it's likely de-rated for this use. As these "jet trucks" are usually used to melt ice off switches, you don't want a jet engine that can produce a lot of thrust, as it would blow the ballast out from under the track and result in a lot of dangerous flying debris and damage. Too powerful of an engine would also send the truck sliding down the track. These trucks rely mostly on the heat coming out of the jet engine's exhaust to melt ice and snow, as opposed to extreme air flow. That jet engine likely produces no more than 2,000 lbs (~8900 N) of thrust. Compare that with the GE9X turbofan engine used on the Boeing 777X, which can produce up to 134,300 lbs (~597,400 N) of thrust! That's more force than the tractive effort many locomotives are capable of.
They used to slick the plows with motor oil back in the day. Never had a problem. Just a normal rag mop and a bucket of used oil from an oil change, recycling it and repurposing it to coat the plow.
Two guys with a belly full of hot coffee and shovels made Canada great, now we have this? But no pipelines lmao this procedure must have taken place on unseeded territory.
idk, its taken me an hour to de ice my snow cat on high moisture, cold conditions, and even with my ice pick, it would barely penetrate, and that was like maybe 10cm thick at most, this would be way harder, I dont think people understand just how hard ice sticks to a surface
I bet 99.9% of people would approve this idea thinking it would clear the ice in 10 seconds or less, before getting shocked at how tough and resilient ice is!!
why not just heat the plow head by running engine coolant through it (or similar), this is pretty close the most Inefficient way of solving this problem.
Wow I REALLY wasn't expecting that to take 51mins. You'd think the heat and air pressure would blast it off in 2-3mins. How is this a thing, the fuel cost to run that engine for 51mins must be insane.
Eric Peper have you ever swung something that didn't land right when hitting a very big mass that is blunt. Ever done it with a sharp object. What gets done with the job faster.... Think about it
Is there a way they could use some of the heat from the locomotive and a system similar to what people use for heated floors, driveways, and sidewalks to warm the blade and keep snow from sticking in the first place..? I feel like that would be WAY more economical...
So, here is another version of it. There is a cement divider on the highway that needs to go away, do you call in a truck to move it, or do you go at it with a pickaxe? That glob of snow/ice would be about as hard and heavy as a concrete barrier.
Similar thought : Those diesel electric trains have enough electric power for a deicing heater permanently built into the back of the plow blade . Keep it constantly warm enough it will not stick . No need to melt all the snow , just what touches the blade . The weight would slide off .
Maybe it's an option to run some pipes behind the metal from the plow and hook it up to the interal watercooling of the engines. This way hot water will flow thru the pies and heat up the plow. Can't be that difficult ...... Now 300$ (or maybe more) is wasted on jetfuel......
For those wondering this is part of the maintenance crew that not only melt ice but other services including fixing rails trains on the field. The pay start up at 16 to $20 an hour and is a 24 hour shift
I used to meet these at designated locations with a fuel oil truck to fill them with kerosene. I’d go to the location turn off the truck and just listen to find out exactly where they were working to melt ice around track switches. Conrail had a short flat car with just the fuel tank, jet engine, and a cab and used the jet engine to push from location to location. We always called it the “snow jet”
"...fill them with kerosene." That explains it. A lot of posters seem to think the RR company is spending a fortune on jet fuel. That would be an insane bill.
Everyone's talking about how slow and inefficiency that felt. Maybe this truck isn't actually designed for this purpose, and it was just driving by taking the engine elsewhere when the engineer asked him to just see what happens when they turned on
@@eun5oo280 oh man I couldn't tell you what I did this morning let alone 3 years ago lol. I genuinely feel that I wasn't content with this method, however, the pun is here to stay.
couple observations one that wasn't all snow it had run through an avalanche and it was obviously dirt debris and tree branches mixed with compacted highly compacted due to avalanche snow... That blade is probably 10 feet tall plus and at least 6 feet wide and it's hard to tell but let's call the thickness of snow 24in or two feet... snow a bit more than half way up call it 7 feet... thats what 84 cubic feet of stuff on blade????... it's dense and the reason it stuck to blade was all crap in it my money is there is close to 2000 pounds of crap there... you would need sledge hammers and pick axes to break that up depending on air temperature and hardness... a escavator could to it but you risk tearing up blade... With the situation at hand the jet dryer was most efficient hell Nascar uses 3 or 4 to dry a race track it's not a big deal... And a railroad like any corporate entity is about making money if there was a cheaper way it would happen don't mix govt inept Ness with Corp... I'd suggest some folks here read up on Pykecrete from WW2 here basically ice mixed with sawdust to build ships out of... It was nearly indestructible and ice mixed with fine avalanche debris is a variation on a theme...
Thank you for your post! I uploaded this video a few years ago, and all kinds of criticisms have been made about the way this snow was removed with a plethora of seemingly simpler alternative suggestions being made. But no one reads my explanation with the video which is that there is a fault in the hydraulics of the mechanism which moves the wings out. If any water is allowed to penetrate into the hydraulic arms, it will freeze and the arms will no longer be deployable for further use until repairs are made. Since more snow was expected and a repair shop was several days away, this method was the most reliable way to keep the plow available for service in the case it was needed if more avalanches occurred.
Electricity from main power plant could warm blade enough, a teflon coating would help greatly, and last that is not a jet engine mounted on truck but an oil heater with a blower, and not very efficient, too much smoke, burning too rich, and I agree on the avalanche too much organic material
considering the blade has to just be warmer than the snow 32F would work, maybe even a few less, but the real problem I saw was the dirt and debris most snow rolls off the blade any way, and after all a lot of excess electricity is burned of in the dynamics I believe it could supply enough
quarter of the time, but 5 times the effort? union says no. Possibly damaging the plow blade with a misplaced swing? insurance company says no. Just heat it till it falls off.
@@berndarndt9924 you know those plows crash through felled trees at speed right? What do you think that plow is made of .080 aluminum lol. It's at least a 1/4 steel. I'm guessing you guys have NEVER been around anything industrial. You can swing on that with a 10lb Sledge all damn day and it's gunna laugh and ask for more.
Thanks for finally suggesting this youtube, its only 8 years after it was posted..... now i'm not saying it looks like it would of been faster with a shovel... but it looks like it would of been faster with a shovel
+USNVA A few reasons. For one thing, the steel on the cutting edge of these plows are about a half inch thick and would require an extremely powerful heating element to heat to a temperature to be effective. There is little room inside these plows, most of it taken up by large air tanks used to move the wings on the side. This plow is probably close to 100 years old (a lot of these old wedge plows were build between the two World Wars) and wouldn't take any sort of retrofit well. Lastly, buildup like this is not common, and if I had to guess, the plow hit a small rock slide while plowing, which caused the large debris buildup. That is a lot of mud, rocks and sticks in that mound of snow. You'll find some other videos around of plows similar to this actively plowing, and you'll notice they normally do a pretty good job at keeping themselves free of snow. It'll build up around the front coupler, but in most circumstances, it will be left to melt off normally, or broken out with shovels and picks. As to why this and not an excavator? This was probably near by and quicker to have come over than to have an excavator trucked in and setup. From what I know of Lake Louise, it is not an easily accessible place by road.
+CRQ5508 I was wondering if he couldn't have aimed the exhaust at the upper part of the blade. The heat would have transferred to the blade and started to melt the layer between ice/snow and the blade. Then the force of the exhaust could also blow between the blade and snow which would also loosen it up and get it off sooner.
CRQ5508 Ever hear of electric cowl rods? We bolt them to the rail at switches and they heat up like a water heater coil and keep the snow and ice from forming. They would work on this old plow. Just need a good sized generator to run them is all. The problem is why are they even using this dinosaur inefficient plow in the first place? Those went out with the covered wagons....they're almost as old.
1:20 the dude went back in the truck as the reactor was heating. I began to wonder if the truck will hit mach 1 on the 100 first meters. #Timhortonswon'twait
Big waste of energy ... heating the plow from behind would do the job. Than all the Snow slides from the Front in a much shorter time and without such a vehicle...
Isn't that a dieselelektric engine? There is plenty of heat at the exhaust and engine-cooling watercycle ... Not as much as the turbine generates, but over the whole time of operation.
***** Maybe we are too far away in thinking about such things. In Germany we solve problems like that more likely the engineering way and that may not the cheapest way to do. But the solution than is than really more efficient and not brute force like that. Also a jet-engine is not cheap and burns so much fuel... and fuel is really expensive here in europe!
After the ice and snow are gone and repairs made, they should try spraying a gallon of WD-40 all over the plow and see how well that works to keep it from sticking and building-up. May not work worth a damn, but it's a cheap enough experiment for the railroad to try.
They should just spray it with Pam, or diesel fuel. It works for our truck boxes when we haul hot asphalt. And Pam keeps rubber from sticking to my shoes when I’m working the burnout box at the dragstrip.
What an incredible waste of energy! Running a god damn jet engine for nearly an hour for a job that would have taken a fraction of the time as well as energy if the plow itself would have been heated up just a tiny bit in order to make that whole big lump come right off...
This machine of the Canadian Pacific Railway has an airplane jet engine mounted on a flat-bed truck. It is primarily used to thaw frozen switches in the winter time. Here it is at Lake Louise thawing snow left on snowplow 400840 after the latter had been used to punch through avalanches in the Kicking Horse Pass near Partridge and Cathedral sidings the night before. The snow could not be left to melt on its own on the plow because it was suffering from an air leak affecting its pneumatic mechanism moving the wings in and out. Melted snow which refroze in the mechanism could disable it. Normally the procedure shown here is not performed. The hot exhaust from the jet engine can be steered to a degree by the movable air funnel placed behind it. The engine produces 140 decibels of noise. If one is standing beside it one must wear double ear protection: plugs and ear muffs. If one only has ear plugs one can only come to within 100 feet of it as the noise level is already at 120 decibels at that point. The crewman told me that this is the only operating unit on the CPR. A second unit exists in Calgary, but is not operational at this time.
Exactly what i was thinking!. Than again this isn't what these jettrains normally do. They are meant for frozen switches so i guess they just wanted to show it off.
I really dont think you comprehend the size of everything in this video...I saw chunks larger than the rear truck tire (bigger than an avg human) fall off 5 mins in...
P. Hills I'm from sweden, i have been clearing snow for a living. And i really don't think that you comprehend how this works. Size does not matter much. If you heat the object you want to clear, the snow or ice on it will lose it's grip and slide right off. Large chunks are no exception, the weight rather helps it to come off quicker! It is a lot faster than heating the snow from the outside. You really only have to melt a thin layer that makes contact with whatever object you are clearing, and that's how you do it.
Canada...hey, get out and pick at it too. Waiting for it to melt will take forever....but the video is great! Diesel trucks, jets and rail. Can it get better? You got the trifecta!
Could be cheaper and more efficient to run the loco exhaust through pipes welded to the back of the plough-blade. Any accumulation would just melt away in a short time without burning extra fuel.
OK Mr tool guy, I read the description, it said: "CPR Jet Truck Melts Snow off Plow 400840". I made an observation about the efficiency of the operation. I fail to see how offering a more fuel-efficient method of clearing the ice from a snowplough makes me a dumbass. perhaps I have misinterpreted the meaning of the word 'dumb'. I do not see offering an alternative solution as an attack, more likely a sensible answer to a fuel-wasting exercise.
Did anyone else think it was gonna be much faster and more satisfying?
We all do, that's what viagra is for.
Not really...it is plain physics
Yes indeed
@OBAMFSpike I wanted to get everyone riled up.
@OBAMFSpike could propably just have a spring loaded wall on the truck, go 5kph with the train to 'ram' into the wall getting it all off within 10 seconds.. just sayin
All of that and it took that long! I expected max of maybe 3 minutes!
@The Bushwacker Ah. That makes sense. It looks like packed snow in the video. If that's solid ice, that's different. Thanks.
Would have been faster if the engine had afterburners
I think a hot water pressure washer would have been faster. The high pressure cutting chucks of ice and snow off, with the water melting things away off the blade.
No Afterburner
Me tooooooo.
One moment of silence for the guy who tought "oh yea let's put a jet engine in a truck for melting snow"
They use it for melting ice off the switches on tracks mainly. It looks dumb until you go try getting that ice off
"Budweiser presents - Real men of Genius (real men of geeenyus). Here's to you Mr. Jet Truck De-Icer (mister jet truck de-i--i-hicer...)
*8 years later* the algorithm: " I think this has marinated long enough."
@@Hammerdak I missed the reference.
@@Hammerdak holy shithow did I not catch that? I actually watch letterkenny.
Fully saturated
Seems that way
lol for real!
Having worked as a mechanic on similar jet engines with the CNR.They were meant to blow snow from railroad switches in rail yards.They were not used as an ice melter. They are extremely fast at clearing snow..
Having shoveled snow there's a thing called a "shovel" you and use it with your hands. I can just imagine when I was a kid me backing up a CNR on someone's driveway for 5 hours. What you said makes sense. This is simply asinine. LAZY AF!
@@DJaquithFL yeah, so how much time do you plan to spend on several hundred square (kilo)meters...? And once you've moved to the second switch to clean, do you expect the first switch to just choose to not re-freeze while you are working on the other switches...? Will all the switches and tracks be usable by trains before the night when everything will be covered in snow and ice again...?
Imagine, they'd use shovels to get snow off the switches and tracks in Siberia or Alaska... Good luck with that.
ua-cam.com/video/CY3AcSYRyDo/v-deo.html
@@IsleNaK .. Did you even watch the video??!!
@@DJaquithFL well you’ve clearly never shoveled snow off of heavy equipment. That would take a person a day or two to chisel off
@@Hgdhgfdssxvbbnjoo .. Please I lived in Chicago 50 years ago I made over $300 in an afternoon hand shoveling snow. Not to mention snowmobiling in the UP and northern Wisconsin.
So, Canadian guy here who has done some snow removal with front-end loaders. Detachable buckets are great, partly because they can be left outside at ambient cold temperatures while the rest of the machine is parked inside a warm building so it starts easily and the glass stays clear. I hope they were able to leave the plow to cool down for a couple of hours after heating that much steel with a jet engine before needing to push more snow with it. Otherwise, about 10 minutes into pushing snow it would probably have been about right back where they started.
If they would had waited 5 more minutes spring would been here.
Kudos!!!
Don’t kill the job!
🤣
🤣
Not in places like Alaska or Siberia.
Is it just me or does this seem highly ineffectice?
Also, thanks youtube recommended.
You meant inefficient.
Optimaloptimus50 50 What’s the difference? Haha 😂
@@PetetheNorwegian Ineffective means it does not work. Inefficient means it is slow and unnecessarily difficult. But I do get the joke.
So many armchair "experts"
@ nobody said anything about being an expert.
They burned a jet engine for an hour to get ice off of a plow.
Yes, that is obviously inefficient.
Especially when you consider the locomotive pushing that plow creates enough heat that just escapes into the atmosphere to probably keep the plow warm the whole time it's being used, thus no ice pack.
Just because you can't think of a way to make it happen, doesn't mean it wouldn't be the more efficient solution.
Fun fact. Nobody reads video descriptions.
If they did there wouldn't be a 100 comments talking about how inefficient this is, like it was designed for this purpose.
This unit is used for the switches. The blade had a mechanical failure and needed to be worked on so the snow had to come off and they used what was available to them.
Read description for more info.
I used to think this or that segment of American society was at the bottom of the food chain - But the modern crop of railfan foamers as demonstrated in this comments section is the stupidest group of people in the history of man. Some kind of weird sideways out cropping of dumb people becoming dumber. Stay with your plastic models and mom's computer there boys, anything like real railroading is beyond the scope of your simple comprehension.
Late, I know, but who else wants to see what happens if they release the brakes on the truck?
Me, me, me.....Zoom! Adios truck.
I would be very interested in seeing that.
Was thinking the same thing.
The truck would not 'take off'. That engine is being used as a gas generator (it generates a stream of hot gasses) which does not make any appreciable thrust. To get thrust, you need to install a jet nozzle behind the turbine. The nozzle accelerates the air stream, generating thrust.
@@garyreams8123 I was waiting for the launch 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Oh for goodness sake, just heat the blade from behind to bust the attachment layer. You don’t need to melt all the ice, just a very thin layer where it’s attached.
Thank you! This is an engineering fail. Don't drink and engineer! I was thinking of a burner system on the back side of the blade. Maybe electric heating elements would work. Yes, the whole mess would slide off in minutes. Not an hour. Geez. That jet engine is wasted on that application. It should be driving a pump in a pipeline somewhere.
this isn't a typical procedure, that truck was designed to clear snow from switches, the plows don't usually need the snow melted off, these guys were just using what they had available in a pinch
That would work to
I read the whole description. If the engine was fully functional, could just move all of the plow joints to knock the snow off from where it matters. But the engine has a pneumatic problem.
There are many ways to get the snow off. This machine that clears ice from switches was handy, so they used it.
There are many attachments for heavy equipment that could handle the task much faster, but they didn't have any of them handy. They could have knocked the big hunks off with a backhoe. Then used
a rotary brush like they use to clear ice and snow from sidewalks. Or a dozen other ways depending on whatever was available.
@Dick Little there are plenty of heating elements that would do the job. If the blade were designed from the start to have heating elements within it, that would work. Retrofitted heating elements would also work, despite your objections.
All I can say is I got a new respect for snow
How many gallons of kerosene were wasted for this pointless job?!
839.642 gallons
Working with BNSF it is about 25 gal of JP8
Yes.
That's correct
LOL...jet engines use compressed air to work. There is NO fuel used.
That's the equivalent of chopping down a thousand year old redwood to make one pencil.
Couldn't have said it better. Thank you for that anology
I agree with Goodbye Mr. Anderson. A perfect analogy.
They get the Dumb Fuck award... Just put heating on the plow face. Far less muss and fuss. Hell the train itself has gobs of excess heat, just pipe it over...
Yep, ridiculously inefficient
Armchair experts !
Everyone seems to forget that that jet clearing device was designed to clear switches which it does quite well. That was most likely frozen blocks of snow with mixed material in it on that blade - more or less frozen cement. Picks would have damaged the plow’s blade. The jet’s exhaust more or less melted all that from the inside out as you saw the stuff fall off the blade as opposed to melting from the surface down.
Actually the ice and snow is not exactly just melted, because of SUBLIMATION it vanishes - The basis of the success and worldwide patents from the equipment and process
can we get a vid of how fast the jet truck can go down the track with full afterburner?
LETS DO IT
I was thinking the same thing
For science!
It's not made to go fast, its made for extreme heat. How fast does a salamander heater go? LOL
No AB installed on this engine.
So anyone else low key hoping to see the jet truck take off down the rails :D
Waiting patiently. Lol
That would have made the video better
"Hi Gordon. Bye Gordon."
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yessssss
35 minutes of a jet engine running to “melt” the snow off. Seems efficient? Or could you maybe heat the blade?!
the jet engine is used for thawing switches, the train had an issue and the blade needed to come off and they used what they had.
Heated blade would've had that snow slide'n off in seconds
Wow wow man! It's still the year 2020, they are not ready yet for that 3030 technology
That was, kind of, my thought too...why not run extensions from the plows/locomotives engine cooling system to imbedded pipes in the plowing shield? Even if you get the shield "heated" up to only just above freezing, it will be enough for the snow to not stick...
Yeah I agree with you on that, heat the blade. Wonder how much jet fuel costs $$$ for that long of a rip. I know that shits expensive.
One of the stupidest ways to clear this problem...
It would seem so yes...
Stupid for some, wicked cool for the rest.
Snow frozen to plow was rendering the plow ineffective. Alternative method of clearing?
@@sntstafford 55 mins to clear the snow - how about heating elements behind the blade?
@@dhenschel4 How about designing and installing same?
Thank you for the post. Interesting solution. I'm just an observer, but I would think there must be a more efficient mechanical option.
Historymaker2001 Its avalanche snow,Usually Avalanche snow gets hard as concrete
Like a shovel?
Might be a silly question, but with all the electric power those locomotives make, couldn't they mount heater coils on the back side of the blade?
Just grease that thing before plowing!
I can help thinking with the amount of fuel that burnt in 20 mins it would have been quicker and cheaper to pay 4 men with picks to clear it
And "that is going to leave a mark" that ice was tough. Thank you for keeping the freight moving
I agree with you on that. I read the word snow in some posts by mistake I believe. No chance. Snow would have been blown away.
But that was one big tough block of ice.
But like many I thought it would be gone 10 minutes tops.
I was completely surprised by how slow the process was. I figured it would just take a few minutes at most.
Jet engines are designed to produce speed, not heat - the heat is a byproduct and it doesn't stick around. They're great at blowing loose snow out of switches, apparently, but not melting boulders.
Imagine the relief felt by the guy with the hair dryer when someone finally came up with this.
Imagine the relief felt by the people who thought of the idea but didn't waste their time trying it.
I imagine that he lost his job.
I think that instead they should have used a couple hundred hand-warmer chemical packs. It's so much more efficient than, say... a couple buckets of hot water.
Sounds like my PS4 trying to run Cyberpunk.
Clean your heat sink!
@@simpson4237 PS4s are from 2013 they're getting old
@@-watermelonking just because they're getting "old" doesn't mean you don't take care of it. I take every console my wife and I have apart atleast once a year to clean them out and if the heat sink is clogged, it's a good time to replace the thermal paste. Both mine and my wife's PS4 are whisper quiet a run cool. My step son on the other hand, I gave him everything to clean and fix his PS4 because it's so loud it would keep the neighbors up but he never bothers. 20 min is to much of his gaming time I guess. Rather sit and wait crash after crash and lose game play and bitch that it runs slow. 🤷♂️
Would’ve loved to see the budget meeting for this thing. I feel like a propane torch or a small excavator could’ve done this in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. Or maybe just some chemical deicer? That machine had to cost upwards of a million dollars.
Not to mention operating costs. Jet engines are very fuel hungry.
According to another commenter that allegedly has/had worked for BNSF, that truck only burns about 25 gallons of JP8 in that time, and another commenter said that normally they would just use some method of heating the blade, and that the truck is only used to thaw switches in normal service but they already had the truck there and needed to detach the blade because the heating thingy didn't work and couldn't detach it while snow is still stuck to it.
A common hot water washer would have done that in 10 - 15 minutes.
@@illbeyourmonster3591 in Siberia, boiling water freezes instantly. You sure that "hot" water will do...?
@moonlandingagain3228are you kidding me 😂 it’s the railroad, those boys don’t do “exercise” lolol
Like watching paint dry, but slower and not quite as exciting 👌
how can "not having a jet engine but having paint" be more exciting than "having a jet engine and snow"?
you're a tough audience.
@@SpaceMissile
Maybe try speeding up the vision for the video..
6min of ice melting is a long watch 👍
And a million times the cost
Its cool because it's not something you see very often in my opinion
That was just like you said 👎
I tried to find out exactly what type of jet engine is on that truck, but couldn't find any reliable info on it. It is likely a small turbojet engine off of an old military aircraft, or a turboshaft engine like those used in helicopters or APUs, as it doesn't seem to produce much thrust. On top of that, going by the sound, it doesn't seem to be running anywhere near its maximum design speed, so it's likely de-rated for this use. As these "jet trucks" are usually used to melt ice off switches, you don't want a jet engine that can produce a lot of thrust, as it would blow the ballast out from under the track and result in a lot of dangerous flying debris and damage. Too powerful of an engine would also send the truck sliding down the track. These trucks rely mostly on the heat coming out of the jet engine's exhaust to melt ice and snow, as opposed to extreme air flow. That jet engine likely produces no more than 2,000 lbs (~8900 N) of thrust. Compare that with the GE9X turbofan engine used on the Boeing 777X, which can produce up to 134,300 lbs (~597,400 N) of thrust! That's more force than the tractive effort many locomotives are capable of.
File under: "should be satisfying, but entirely un-satisfying"
Next time pretreat with Pam Non-stick Cooking Spray!!
Rain-X would work better.
They used to slick the plows with motor oil back in the day. Never had a problem. Just a normal rag mop and a bucket of used oil from an oil change, recycling it and repurposing it to coat the plow.
@@MrWolfSnack until it became a problem. Environmentalists
Yep. If they had a job they would know that oil is in the ground to begin with.
That's alot of Pam lol
Oh youtube algorithm you have again blessed us with your wisdom. Literly nobody asked but it was well deserved. Let us pray
Expensive!! Took longer than I thought it would!!!
Sure hope the finance department dosen't see this, a couple of guy with shovels could clear that away in less time.
100 liters of fuel and workers standing around paid by the hour twiddling their thumbs..
That was my first thought 😅 there's no fucking way this is the cheapest and fastest way to do it
Two guys with a belly full of hot coffee and shovels made Canada great, now we have this? But no pipelines lmao this procedure must have taken place on unseeded territory.
idk, its taken me an hour to de ice my snow cat on high moisture, cold conditions, and even with my ice pick, it would barely penetrate, and that was like maybe 10cm thick at most, this would be way harder,
I dont think people understand just how hard ice sticks to a surface
Lol go and try it.
I bet 99.9% of people would approve this idea thinking it would clear the ice in 10 seconds or less, before getting shocked at how tough and resilient ice is!!
why not just heat the plow head by running engine coolant through it (or similar), this is pretty close the most Inefficient way of solving this problem.
I think the monster electrical generating capacity of the locomotive would enable that plow to be well heated all of the time!
Or even port some of the exhaust up front....like what is done on haul trucks to thaw out the bed
The reason they used the jet was cause the mechanism you described broke on it and had to be melted manually.
*forgets parking brake*
Zzzznnnerroooowwwwmmmmmm
Mixtape Dropper bill ratchet
nyoooooom
Wow I REALLY wasn't expecting that to take 51mins. You'd think the heat and air pressure would blast it off in 2-3mins.
How is this a thing, the fuel cost to run that engine for 51mins must be insane.
That was about as much fun as watching paint dry.
Idk man, I've seen some pretty interesting paint. This is more like hearing damage simulator
I thought I was going to see something melt the snow in 5 minutes.
“Hey bob. How we gonna get all this snow off of our train plow?”
“Joe. Three words. Truck. Jet engine.”
“Yeah, ok.”
That’s the most Louisianan shit I’ve heard all day 😆
30 years of railroading in Texas and I have never seen one of these in action...Awesome video!
That’s because it’s a stunt. Not how they really do it.
30 years of using a shovel and I have never seen something that has more power than me but takes twice as long.
It took them almost 60 minutes to melt some snow... WITH A FREAKING JET ENGINE.
Very inefficient.
Samir Bavkar That could be few tons of snow there. Also note that it got evaporated, and that takes energy and time.
it is ice not snow...but truely inefficient :-)
Big deal! It weighs a little! I'm soo surprised. Gotta go to school to be that stupid...
Eric Peper have you ever swung something that didn't land right when hitting a very big mass that is blunt. Ever done it with a sharp object. What gets done with the job faster.... Think about it
I guess you are right. Instead just shut down the rails until spring....
Is there a way they could use some of the heat from the locomotive and a system similar to what people use for heated floors, driveways, and sidewalks to warm the blade and keep snow from sticking in the first place..? I feel like that would be WAY more economical...
When a dessert spoon would be quicker.
Lol!!!
This is much cooler
Started out as ice removal, ended with tempering steel.
I worked on f18s and I can't beleive it took this long to melt some ice. Jet exhaust is HOT
51 minutes!? Are you fucking kidding me. And that doesn't even include waiting for the truck to arrive at the train... ever heard of a shovel?
it's packed on there so it would be long that way
Yeah ,51 minutes of wasting money.
So, here is another version of it. There is a cement divider on the highway that needs to go away, do you call in a truck to move it, or do you go at it with a pickaxe? That glob of snow/ice would be about as hard and heavy as a concrete barrier.
TheDarkFalcon Then you should grab a pick and a shovel, and get to work.
Union bro
So 50 minutes of jet fuel used, couldn’t they just get a hot water hose on it ?.
or hit it with some sledge hammers 50 times....
No. It would just make a big frozen mess. I live where it gets 20° and 30° below. Even boiling hot water would freeze up almost immediately.
Find and read Bushwhacker's comments.
They could've brought that thing inside of a bay with people to hit and poke at the snow and it would've been cheaper
I was waiting for him to release the brake on the truck and send the truck flying down the rails at 300 MPH.
That would’ve been better than the snail dry
Seems more efficient to heat the plow with the heat from the Diesel engine before it builds up so much during use.
Similar thought : Those diesel electric trains have enough electric power for a deicing heater permanently built into the back of the plow blade . Keep it constantly warm enough it will not stick . No need to melt all the snow , just what touches the blade . The weight would slide off .
That's what I was thinking. The waste heat from the diesel engine should be enough to keep the plow warm enough.
With that power up half expected to see the truck launch down the track.
Beautiful sound .
Pure magic. 😆😆
It's so weird how many times i've watched this. It's one of the only You Tube reruns that doesn't irritate me.
Maybe it's an option to run some pipes behind the metal from the plow and hook it up to the interal watercooling of the engines. This way hot water will flow thru the pies and heat up the plow. Can't be that difficult ...... Now 300$ (or maybe more) is wasted on jetfuel......
$300??? Try $3000!
Could hire some kids with shovels and get it done for a 1/3 of tht price
Murica
ShippingHarbors the jet is cooler...pardon the pun.
they dont use jet fuel... probably diesel
For those wondering this is part of the maintenance crew that not only melt ice but other services including fixing rails trains on the field. The pay start up at 16 to $20 an hour and is a 24 hour shift
Would not get out of bed for that
24hour shift? for max $20? in what country? Uganda?
Thats why Tim always says,: we need more power!"😂😂
This is so much more efficient than transferring heat from the loco engine to the blade, to keep the temp constant....👏👏👏👏👏
Seems a heated blade would have made more sense and cost less
Mark Olsen it’s half inch thick steel
almost an hour of what is essentially a hair dryer on steroids slowly but surely melting snow, condensed into a 5.5 minute video
Somebody say ecology? :DD From my point of view after 30 minutes of "heating" you can simply use shovel and it will be two times faster.
I used to meet these at designated locations with a fuel oil truck to fill them with kerosene. I’d go to the location turn off the truck and just listen to find out exactly where they were working to melt ice around track switches. Conrail had a short flat car with just the fuel tank, jet engine, and a cab and used the jet engine to push from location to location. We always called it the “snow jet”
"...fill them with kerosene." That explains it. A lot of posters seem to think the RR company is spending a fortune on jet fuel. That would be an insane bill.
Everyone's talking about how slow and inefficiency that felt. Maybe this truck isn't actually designed for this purpose, and it was just driving by taking the engine elsewhere when the engineer asked him to just see what happens when they turned on
im not a fan of this solution to the problem ....
Guessing the jet crew had nothing better to do.
Dont know if this was a pun or not
@@eun5oo280 oh man I couldn't tell you what I did this morning let alone 3 years ago lol.
I genuinely feel that I wasn't content with this method, however, the pun is here to stay.
couple observations one that wasn't all snow it had run through an avalanche and it was obviously dirt debris and tree branches mixed with compacted highly compacted due to avalanche snow... That blade is probably 10 feet tall plus and at least 6 feet wide and it's hard to tell but let's call the thickness of snow 24in or two feet... snow a bit more than half way up call it 7 feet... thats what 84 cubic feet of stuff on blade????... it's dense and the reason it stuck to blade was all crap in it my money is there is close to 2000 pounds of crap there... you would need sledge hammers and pick axes to break that up depending on air temperature and hardness... a escavator could to it but you risk tearing up blade... With the situation at hand the jet dryer was most efficient hell Nascar uses 3 or 4 to dry a race track it's not a big deal... And a railroad like any corporate entity is about making money if there was a cheaper way it would happen don't mix govt inept Ness with Corp... I'd suggest some folks here read up on Pykecrete from WW2 here basically ice mixed with sawdust to build ships out of... It was nearly indestructible and ice mixed with fine avalanche debris is a variation on a theme...
Thank you for your post! I uploaded this video a few years ago, and all kinds of criticisms have been made about the way this snow was removed with a plethora of seemingly simpler alternative suggestions being made. But no one reads my explanation with the video which is that there is a fault in the hydraulics of the mechanism which moves the wings out. If any water is allowed to penetrate into the hydraulic arms, it will freeze and the arms will no longer be deployable for further use until repairs are made. Since more snow was expected and a repair shop was several days away, this method was the most reliable way to keep the plow available for service in the case it was needed if more avalanches occurred.
Electricity from main power plant could warm blade enough, a teflon coating would help greatly, and last that is not a jet engine mounted on truck but an oil heater with a blower, and not very efficient, too much smoke, burning too rich, and I agree on the avalanche too much organic material
considering the blade has to just be warmer than the snow 32F would work, maybe even a few less, but the real problem I saw was the dirt and debris most snow rolls off the blade any way, and after all a lot of excess electricity is burned of in the dynamics I believe it could supply enough
C and K Early Warning Systems you are wrong
wow I'll take your word for it of course going to defer to the railroad on this one...
So.... what I really want to know is.......
If the brakes are released, how fast can the jet drive the truck?
Asking the real questions.
"So what do you do for a living?"
"Well..... "
Definitely expecting something more spectacular. Neat none the less though.
Spray some Pam cooking spray on that train and see what happens! Helps my satellite dish in winter, slow just rolls off!
I think an excavator with a good operator at the controls would be much more effective, but if I had a jet engine I’d want to play with it too.
I could have done it in about a quarter of the time with a freaking sledge hammer.
I know right? I was thinking the exact same thing but with a pick axe.
I’d probably use a splitting axe, but who knows, that snow is probably compressed to a density as solid as ice.
This is ice and u could damage the plow in the process.
quarter of the time, but 5 times the effort? union says no. Possibly damaging the plow blade with a misplaced swing? insurance company says no. Just heat it till it falls off.
@@berndarndt9924 you know those plows crash through felled trees at speed right? What do you think that plow is made of .080 aluminum lol. It's at least a 1/4 steel. I'm guessing you guys have NEVER been around anything industrial. You can swing on that with a 10lb Sledge all damn day and it's gunna laugh and ask for more.
Thanks for finally suggesting this youtube, its only 8 years after it was posted..... now i'm not saying it looks like it would of been faster with a shovel... but it looks like it would of been faster with a shovel
Seems like it would be more efficient to have a blow with a heat system to keep the metal at 90 like most companies do
Why not just put electric heating elements behind the blade to keep it warm while plowing?
Because thats no fun
+USNVA A few reasons. For one thing, the steel on the cutting edge of these plows are about a half inch thick and would require an extremely powerful heating element to heat to a temperature to be effective. There is little room inside these plows, most of it taken up by large air tanks used to move the wings on the side. This plow is probably close to 100 years old (a lot of these old wedge plows were build between the two World Wars) and wouldn't take any sort of retrofit well. Lastly, buildup like this is not common, and if I had to guess, the plow hit a small rock slide while plowing, which caused the large debris buildup. That is a lot of mud, rocks and sticks in that mound of snow. You'll find some other videos around of plows similar to this actively plowing, and you'll notice they normally do a pretty good job at keeping themselves free of snow. It'll build up around the front coupler, but in most circumstances, it will be left to melt off normally, or broken out with shovels and picks. As to why this and not an excavator? This was probably near by and quicker to have come over than to have an excavator trucked in and setup. From what I know of Lake Louise, it is not an easily accessible place by road.
+CRQ5508 I was wondering if he couldn't have aimed the exhaust at the upper part of the blade. The heat would have transferred to the blade and started to melt the layer between ice/snow and the blade. Then the force of the exhaust could also blow between the blade and snow which would also loosen it up and get it off sooner.
USNVA A Union won't be involved...
CRQ5508 Ever hear of electric cowl rods? We bolt them to the rail at switches and they heat up like a water heater coil and keep the snow and ice from forming. They would work on this old plow. Just need a good sized generator to run them is all. The problem is why are they even using this dinosaur inefficient plow in the first place? Those went out with the covered wagons....they're almost as old.
I guess CP gets a really good deal on JP4 jet fuel...
that was the slowest quarter-mile run i have ever seen 😅
so ur telling me there is a practical application to strapping a jet engine to the back of a truck?
Yes it's a great way to waste free money
This is an example of R/R money they spend.
You think this is a practical application?
@@jasonstewart3748 At the cost of the jet engine, fuel and maintenance and parts, other means would be more practical don't you agree.
It’s a switch heater/ blower not normally used for this
When I see the truck sliding forward, then I'll believe he's putting some effort into it!
1:20 the dude went back in the truck as the reactor was heating. I began to wonder if the truck will hit mach 1 on the 100 first meters. #Timhortonswon'twait
faster then parking it in a heated shed overnight!
Two great beasts of the animal kingdom working in tandem. A true symbiotic relationship.
I was expecting the truck to do a 1000ft weelie lmao.
Big waste of energy ... heating the plow from behind would do the job. Than all the Snow slides from the Front in a much shorter time and without such a vehicle...
Isn't that a dieselelektric engine? There is plenty of heat at the exhaust and engine-cooling watercycle ... Not as much as the turbine generates, but over the whole time of operation.
*****
Maybe we are too far away in thinking about such things. In Germany we solve problems like that more likely the engineering way and that may not the cheapest way to do. But the solution than is than really more efficient and not brute force like that.
Also a jet-engine is not cheap and burns so much fuel... and fuel is really expensive here in europe!
***** lol... Good point!
PLUS don't they use the jet to clear switches and such?
And how much heat would you need from behind? That steel on the plow is probably over an inch thick
Finally, after 8 years i can watch this video!
At the end the truck flew off and went into the sky and was very happy.. :)
When the parking brakes fail, ".. to the moon Alice!"
Pow Zoom!
Workman standing there enjoying the heat🔥
and no mosquitoes for the next 6 months
After the ice and snow are gone and repairs made, they should try spraying a gallon of WD-40 all over the plow and see how well that works to keep it from sticking and building-up. May not work worth a damn, but it's a cheap enough experiment for the railroad to try.
LMAO PWNT
They should just spray it with Pam, or diesel fuel. It works for our truck boxes when we haul hot asphalt. And Pam keeps rubber from sticking to my shoes when I’m working the burnout box at the dragstrip.
Fluid Film 👍
Heating the snowplow is self will prevent snow sticking to it.
Juist build a heading system into the snowplow that uses the rest heat of the train.
not as impressive as I thought it would be
What was most impressive was the gross waste of time and energy!
@@rmhdsn284 it wasn´t wasted. The time you spend watching this voedeo was though.
what a waste of fuel and time
hbre78a
yes i did and it is still a big waste of fuel and time
no worry
How would you like to live near there and listen to that for an hour? Took way longer than I thought it would.
Wow! I was thinking that it only would've taken about 1/10th of that time to melt all of that snow.
"TURN UP THE VOLUME!!!"
*immediately proceeds to turn volume to its lowest setting*
Oh, c’mon! The sound of the jet was well worth the ineffectiveness of the whole melting process!!!
I may be wrong, but that sounded like a Rolls Royce
Very true, chooch1995.
Dang! Who'd have thought it would take a JET ENGINE nearly an *HOUR* to melt SNOW?! Must have been some monumentally compacted snow...
JW3HH
That was 5 minutes and 40 seconds of my life I can't ever get back
Had to bring out your Christmas present to show off!
What an incredible waste of energy! Running a god damn jet engine for nearly an hour for a job that would have taken a fraction of the time as well as energy if the plow itself would have been heated up just a tiny bit in order to make that whole big lump come right off...
*****
hahahah awesome!
This machine of the Canadian Pacific Railway has an airplane jet engine mounted on a flat-bed truck. It is primarily used to thaw frozen switches in the winter time. Here it is at Lake Louise thawing snow left on snowplow 400840 after the latter had been used to punch through avalanches in the Kicking Horse Pass near Partridge and Cathedral sidings the night before. The snow could not be left to melt on its own on the plow because it was suffering from an air leak affecting its pneumatic mechanism moving the wings in and out. Melted snow which refroze in the mechanism could disable it. Normally the procedure shown here is not performed.
The hot exhaust from the jet engine can be steered to a degree by the movable air funnel placed behind it. The engine produces 140 decibels of noise. If one is standing beside it one must wear double ear protection: plugs and ear muffs. If one only has ear plugs one can only come to within 100 feet of it as the noise level is already at 120 decibels at that point. The crewman told me that this is the only operating unit on the CPR. A second unit exists in Calgary, but is not operational at this time.
Exactly what i was thinking!.
Than again this isn't what these jettrains normally do. They are meant for frozen switches so i guess they just wanted to show it off.
I really dont think you comprehend the size of everything in this video...I saw chunks larger than the rear truck tire (bigger than an avg human) fall off 5 mins in...
P. Hills
I'm from sweden, i have been clearing snow for a living. And i really don't think that you comprehend how this works. Size does not matter much. If you heat the object you want to clear, the snow or ice on it will lose it's grip and slide right off. Large chunks are no exception, the weight rather helps it to come off quicker! It is a lot faster than heating the snow from the outside. You really only have to melt a thin layer that makes contact with whatever object you are clearing, and that's how you do it.
God damn, get rid of that truck and global warming goes away. Then the polar bears dont have to worry about hearing protection
Canada...hey, get out and pick at it too. Waiting for it to melt will take forever....but the video is great! Diesel trucks, jets and rail. Can it get better? You got the trifecta!
Could be cheaper and more efficient to run the loco exhaust through pipes welded to the back of the plough-blade. Any accumulation would just melt away in a short time without burning extra fuel.
so true!! that fucker probably puts out a lot of heat...
Sorry, I fail to understand why suggesting a suitable alternative merits the title of dumbass. Please explain.
I'm sorry if it appears to you that I don't understand, it's just that I'm an engineer, not a railfanner
OK Mr tool guy, I read the description, it said: "CPR Jet Truck Melts Snow off Plow 400840". I made an observation about the efficiency of the operation. I fail to see how offering a more fuel-efficient method of clearing the ice from a snowplough makes me a dumbass. perhaps I have misinterpreted the meaning of the word 'dumb'. I do not see offering an alternative solution as an attack, more likely a sensible answer to a fuel-wasting exercise.
nlo114 that is the title, not the description. Let me repeat the tool guy, read the description