This month I want to comment on the weather. I read a story in a Cripple Creek newspaper from the mid-1890’s about the weather. I know we never have two winters in a row the same. Many of us “oldtimers” will tell you that, but still you hear dreadful predictions about future storms.

This story relates that the area is free of snow, and also the main trails are dry. It says the delightful weather of Spring has arrived and put many of the mountains in green. The area’s railroads normally see many trips by the various snowplows, clearing the lines. This winter they barely ran. Most are already waiting, cleaned up, in their spaces in various roundhouses.

An idea of the usual work done by these big steam rotary plows is like one of a trip through Divide on the Colorado Midland. I was clearing the main line westward which was some nine feet deep. On the way it encountered a shovel, probably abandoned by a workman earlier in the storm. It chewed up the tool and scattered the parts along the businesses on the hillside. It was if it was no problem at all. It did the same with chunks of coal, and wood and more usually ice. All of the mountain railways of any size had one or more of these beasts.

My favorite, shared here many years ago was one of a rotary plow that encountered a cow, taking shelter on the tracks. It had frozen but was buried in snow. The blade sliced it up quicker than a butcher. The crew at first thought it might have been a bear. Later a nearby rancher noticed his loss. I know it still happens out on the wilds of Kansas and Nebraska.

Anyway, we are likely to get more snow before the summer arrives.