Moving snow with real trucks

[ChrisNY]

11 minutes ago, KWRB said:

Never in my life have I been fortunate enough to see a V-plow in action...

Drive a few miles north of you up to Worth,Pinckney, Montague, pretty much any winter day that it is snowing and you will see them. They still use them daily. 
Most other towns just bring them out to push back or open up if they lose a road 

[ChrisNY]

6 minutes ago, Matt Kirsch said:

The only 4x4 plow the Town of Orangeville NY has now is an F550. They seriously plow the roads with a pickup truck.

Every town does keep a V plow or two around, usually as lawn decoration out in front of the town buildings.

Every Town, Village, County, City and NYS barn have a Frink V for a yard sign up here. Lol  Sometimes they do double duty  

[sandhiller]

Everyone local, County and State have road patrols with V blades and wings and trucks with blades

The State of Nebr has trucks with blowers that will travel around the state to wherever they are needed after a major snow event if local is overwhelmed

[ChrisNY]

15 minutes ago, sandhiller said:

Everyone local, County and State have road patrols with V blades and wings and trucks with blades

The State of Nebr has trucks with blowers that will travel around the state to wherever they are needed after a major snow event if local is overwhelmed

What is a road patrol?

[int 504]

Road patrol is a grader

[ChrisNY]

10 minutes ago, int 504 said:

Road patrol is a grader

Ahhh ok. Never heard one called that. 

[Dirt_Floor_Poor]

All the counties around me have a V-Blade for the front of a grader. They only see use about once a decade here lately. I don’t know much about the road grader market, but they all seem to be Deere around here. At least the ones being bought by county governments anyway. I’ve never seen a truck mounted V-Blade around here. 

[mader656]

County has a mix of dump trucks with plows and wings cat 140 graders with v plow and supposed to have wings.

State has dump trucks with wings 

Couple graders with benching wings. 

Loaders with blowers upto a 824 deere with mounted blower. Chains for all 4 tires. 

If it gets really  bad they will clean out the snow traps with the snowcat. This the advantage of having the most scenic pass in America 50 miles away.

We dont get snow like ny. Just massive drifting is our issue.

[Mr. Plow]

Central IL uses graders for winging back snow, sometimes with a v-plow if it gets serious. 

Graders with snow wings are called "maintainers" around here.

[ChrisNY]

It is so interesting how different areas use such different equipment to accomplish the same task

[billonthefarm]

Yep, graders are the big snow movers here when things get tough.   Our township has a payloader with a blade which is pretty handy.   Those 6x6 graders with a v plow and wing can move some snow. Every road district has one.  Counties have graders.  State even has them but also have some Oshkosh trucks.  Majority is done with straight trucks and twin screw tandems.  We have had basically zero snow this winter. 

[cm228]

The township here hasn’t had to use the  v plow since the 93-96 time frame. I’m not sure if they have it or the old cat grader any more. It was 93 we had a major storm, school was out for days and power was out too for a while. The township couldn’t make it down our road. A few hours later the grader came through with the v plow on. It was neat seeing that come through. In years where we got a lot of small snows they would come by with the grader and move the banks back with the grader blade pushed way out to the side. The front loader was used in those years to push back snow piles at intersections. Now they only use the grader for cleaning out roadside ditches every few years. They have a newer Deere 544 with a blade on the front to push open roads now if they drift shut. This picture was back in 2010. There was a car stuck in the drifts. A local guy dug them out with a skid steer barely enough to get through. I went up the road after the skid steer and car came out. The drifts were 6’+. I couldn’t see over them as I drove through. The township came in shortly afterwards with the loader and spent a few hours pushing the drifts back. 
 

Matt

 

[sandhiller]

8 hours ago, ChrisNY said:

What is a road patrol?

Road grader 

Local dialect

[mader656]

1 hour ago, sandhiller said:

Road grader 

Local dialect

Ive heard them called 

Motor patrol

Maintainer 

Blade

Patrol grader

Road grader

Motor grader

 

[New Englander]

13 hours ago, Matt Kirsch said:

lawn decoration out in front of the town buildings

Many towns around me do just that. They put them in front of the highway department yards as signs. Doubtless they were once mounted on an Oshkosh or Walter or some other dedicated snow machine.. We just don't often get the amounts of snow we did in past decades, the weather patterns have changed that much. This winter has been much colder so far compared to recent ones but we've had little snow. Of course a big northeast storm could show up and bury us.

[Ihcubguy]

At the township I work at in central PA we use F550's and an F350 for most storms. We surround a local town and have quite a bit of suburban areas we deal with so larger trucks become cumbersome in those areas. Normally we can keep the country roads we have open with the 550's. If it get more than they can deal with we have 2 single axle Sterlings with Gledhill 2 way plows one being an AWD. For the biggest drifts that we normally get here we have a 918 Cat wheel loader with an old Falls 1 way plow on it to push back drifts. A blower would be nice but not neccessary.  We don't see as much snow as our neighbors to the north or the ones west near Erie or Buffalo. The worst is usually the tail end of snow bands off lake Erie or when we get Nor'easters. There are many municipalities around here that have road graders they mount V plows on for winter maintenance. It's crazy what some of y'all deal with in snow. And y'all can keep it to. Them Walter snow fighters are definitely pretty cool trucks from the videos of them I have seen. Look like they'd be neat to run for a few hours just so a fella could say he did.

[1256pickett]

7 hours ago, mader656 said:

Ive heard them called 

Motor patrol

Maintainer 

Blade

Patrol grader

Road grader

Motor grader

 

I want to say road patrol or maybe one of these variations was used as a model name by a company years ago. Allis maybe? 

[Bermuda_Ken]

Here behind the Cheddar Curtain....EVERY county used to have a pair of Oshkosh or (sometimes) FWD vee plow with wings.  Now with the lack of big snows, most Counties are selling them off now.  Pretty rare to find graders used in snow here.  Most plows are tandem dumps with 1 way blade and belly scraper blade.  IF we get a big snow and you see an Oshkosh out....its pretty serious snow.

 

[yellowrosefarm]

Russell motor patrol grader on Mccormick 10-20 tractor

 

[Rainman]

   Worked County Hwy. '73 -'06.

State of Wis. pays Counties to do road & R/W maintenance. County can bid on state projects along with private contractors.

Outlying shop I worked @ for most of my time had:

1 Walters w/one way , V Plow, right hand  Wing.

Oshkosh one way , V Plow, RH Wing,

FWD tandem, one way ,V Plow, RH Wing

Cat 12 Blade, V Plow, RH Wing & One way plow

777 WABCO Blade/Grader, RH Wing, One Plow, V Plow

Austin Western 300 Pacer 4x4 Blade, One way Plow, & V Plow (The A/W replaced a Galion tandem Blade)

Austin Western Blade with circle replaced with Buda power unit (Positioned like a Slant 6) to power a 8' ? Snow Blower

7 Patrol Trucks (Section Truck one Rear Axle) w/11' one way or two way plow & salter , trucks  vary 

from IH 1700 Loadstars w/ Perkins 354 , Ford 6000, Ford 8000, Freightliners, newer IH w/ 466

When severe wind & snow storms necessitated roads to get opened up and V plows were needed. A Hough D 100/120 ( from Main shop) with Dozer Blade removed & huge V Plow mounted on front would plow open county & township roads and push back ditches. 

By the way I did operate RH wing filling in one day or 2 in the Walters Plowing Machine.

 Also got to use the Walters to pull out stuck A/W Pacer Blade operated by a foreman that ran into a soft spot that was from a barnyard runoff.

Did I say I miss plowing snow without  the Crazy Traffic... 

[Lazy WP]

So do you guys who get the lake effect snows, get winds like we get out here? It doesn’t take much snow to totally shut everything down, when driven by 60mph winds. 
From what I’ve read about the blizzard of ‘49, the winds blew from about every direction, totally drifting everything in. 

[ChrisNY]

6 minutes ago, Lazy WP said:

So do you guys who get the lake effect snows, get winds like we get out here? It doesn’t take much snow to totally shut everything down, when driven by 60mph winds. 
From what I’ve read about the blizzard of ‘49, the winds blew from about every direction, totally drifting everything in. 

It all depends, not usually that high. The center of lake effect band the winds are usually light 5-10mph, the edges of the bands the winds tend to be in the 20-30 range. There are times the wind can get up 40-50 but usually behind or ahead of the lake snows. If the wind is too high it usually shuts off the lake effect. Lake effect is so different than regular storms as they narrow intense bands. You can be in sunny blue skys and drive into a wall of snow, zero visibility and complete whiteout then drive out of it in 10 miles back to sunshine and dry roads

[766 Man]

16 minutes ago, Lazy WP said:

So do you guys who get the lake effect snows, get winds like we get out here? It doesn’t take much snow to totally shut everything down, when driven by 60mph winds. 
From what I’ve read about the blizzard of ‘49, the winds blew from about every direction, totally drifting everything in. 

  Most of my lake effect comes off of Lake Ontario from the NW.  It takes a wind of 10 MPH to push snow as far south as I am from Lake Ontario.  Wind speeds associated with a significant snow event are 12-20 MPH.  I do get snow from Lake Erie but that is normally associated with a low pressure system and the winds are typically 20 plus MPH.

[Cliff Neubauer]

Here in Southern Iowa trucks like that don't exist, I think our county has 8 graders that they will run V plows on when it gets bad, two have side wings.  Last winter when we had 28" of snow in a week the paired chained up graders with V plows along with a chained up tandem loaded with sand.  The grader would break through a road then the truck would come in behind and widen it out.  

[Gearclash]

Here, motor graders are primarily for gravel roads, usually a one way and wing. If they expect impassable roads they will put a V plow up front. Motor graders might see a little use on paved county roads. Usually that is handled by tandem trucks with a one way and wing. Trucks rarely venture on the gravel roads, although I did once see an Oshkosh SA plowing a gravel when the crews were struggling to keep things open. Pretty sure the state roads are mostly cleared by trucks with a one way and wing. Not sure what they send out if a road is impassable. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a V plow on a truck around here.  
 

I have a V plow for my biggest tractor. Works very well to pop things open in a hurry but widening the path is slow. A one way would be much quicker for that.  V plows can muscle through an appalling amount of snow. Have to run them so they float just slightly, the snow pulls the plow down and puts more weight on the MFD axle.