The fun and sport of plowing snow! Harper’s Weekly published this picture in its Jan. 16, 1897, issue. Here is the short article that accompanied the image:
“Bucking snow-drifts on railroads with a steam snow plough has the elements of a true sport, combining competition, danger, uncertainty, excitement, and hard work. In its risks it compares favorably with football, it is played at higher speed than polo, and it rivals hunting in uncertainties of time and destination. The pictures shown elsewhere in this number of “snow-bucking” on the Northern Pacific gave an idea of what it is like. Only the steam ploughs deal adequately with deep drifts on the Northwestern roads, and they, to be efficient, must be driven at high speed. A plough that goes through a drift at ten or fifteen miles an hour simply pushes the snow ahead, and presently, if there is snow enough, gets stalled. But driven at a forty- or fifty-mile gait, it turns up a beautiful snow wreath on each side of the plough. It is hard to get a photograph that shows a snow-plough at work. Only the front view tells the story, for nothing appears from behind except flying snow-clouds. The picture given in the in the WEEKLY of the snow-plough in action was taken by Dr. E. W. Read, of Mandan, North Dakota, who went out with the plough train west of Mandan after the big December storm and caught from in front a plough driven by four locomotives. All the ploughs shown are of the old-fashioned sort. The new rotary plough is good, and is in frequent use, but for practical work it has not driven out the old-style machine.”