Illuminated by the rapidly setting sun, with swirling snow looking like a seething firestorm, Union Pacific rotary snowplow No. 900082 tries in vain to throw snow to the north side right-of-way. U.S. Highway 40 runs parallel to UP’s Limon Subdivision for a good part of the way, much of it on the south side of the tracks. Some of the days snow-clearing ended up occasionally being deposited on the road, with some of the blowing snow creating a visibility hazard for motorists. So for a brief while out of Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, the crew tried sending the white stuff north, only to have the stiff wind deposit it back onto the train and tracks. The Cheyenne-based plow was called to clear the “Kansas Pacific” line from Limon to Sharon Springs, Kansas, after a severe October blizzard drifted the line closed. East of Cheyenne Wells, the sun will set as the rotary worked into the night of October 28, 1997.
