My buddy that works for BNSF outta' Cle Elum had to take a "refresher" on the old Jordan's at Auburn Yard Thursday.... Naturally, I had to stop by and say hi!
I think I prefer the oxide red one. I would have liked to see a lineup of all the snow equipment before it got repainted. All the BN equipment used to be in that oxide red color. All that brown at once would have been wild. Alas, the rotaries have been repainted into the H3 swoosh scheme over the last few years or so. Obviously that was not a universal program because now we have all different colored equipment. It would be cool to have everything match up for once. I am not a fan of the rotaries being in H3. That should be a locomotive scheme only. BNSF has always had oxide red cars; I mean look at the hopper in between the units in the second photo. It would have been better for them to continue that scheme onto more equipment, not start repainting things into yellow or orange.
It was completely overhauled two years ago and received this paint scheme, kinda' goes with all the track machinery for MoW, I guess. There's one of these used up on Stevens Pass, little bigger and full carbody, that is in the Cascade Green/white nose stripes still! It's usually kept in Wenatchee, and brung over in the Fall.
I was just reading a story that this year is supposedly to be a La Nina season. Cooler, wetter. Hmmmm. I wonder if this is part of the reason for getting ready now?
Those are Snow Dozers. They were originally built for the Great Northern. They have a lot of the same features as Jordan spreaders (wing blades, and the front blades fold down to plow over the rails). Sometimes you can see the Jordan spreaders on MOW work doing ballast profiling because of their jointed wing blades, but I think the Snow Dozers are specifically for winter conditions. From what I know, BNSF has 8 of these.
They may be nicknamed "snow dozers", but are simply a variant of a spreader. They flange, plow and widen cuts- all in one application.
