A Really Versital Snow Removal Tool

Was watching the local evening news from Albany NY. tonight. Thay had a segment on removing all the snow banks on city streets. There were a couple of 4yd+ loaders working, plus another one with a unique and very productive attachment on it. It was a hydraulic folding pusher box. The center section appeared to be about 8' wide, with heavy built wings about 8'long that could conceivably fold out to plow a 24' wide swath, straight out, or be closed in at any degree of to contain and push large amounts of snow to the edges of parking lots. In their vidio the operator was working in narrow streets and had the wings folded in a C shape. When he had sufficient snow coralled in it he closed the wings together tight and picked up the boom and moved over to a waiting dump truck, and opened the jaws and the snow fell into the truck, There wasn't any shaking of the bucket like usual and it appeared that he was handling 2-3 times more snow per cycle and no second and third trip to clean up the spoils that flow off the sides of normal buckets. Someone was using their head when they designed it. Only downfall I could see is that it is strictly a snow removal tool and probably pricy.

I dident see that, but on channel 6 there haveing a topic about thiefs comeing into peoples homes and stripping out the copper, up in Amsterdam, to sell as scrap!

The snow removal tool I use the most is round and moves across the sky each day. It doesn't work very well during the nighttime hours. Some days it is obscured by the snow producing tool.

Then I can't imagine you're anywhere near central NY. That tool is generally over powered by simple clouds.

I was driving through town today and had a big payloader in front of me scooping up snow piles. He turned a corner going into the school parking lot, and on the side of the machine is a sign that said Hertz. Got to thinking-they rent those things? I want to rent one!

Sounds like the snow there is warm enough to stick together. I don't think it would work here. (Central MN.)

Last winter I saw what must ahve been a prototype snow plow truck clearing an empty parking lot of the old Wal-Mart in Chilton (they built a bigger & better one down the road a ways).

It was built by Oshkosh Truck (the same guys who build alot of military vehicles, and 99% of the areas cement trucks) and the snow plow would pick up and turn a full 180* so they could work all the snow in one direction while going back & forth, like a rollover moldboard plow. Looked to be a pretty sizeable blade too. Was a funnel shaped one like the city & county trucks use, only double edged.

Never seen one before then or since, but it looked to be a heck of a rig.

Donovan from Wisconsin

I drove a plow truck with one of those double edge plows at the airport I worked at. It was on a 1959 Oskosh plow truck. It is called a roll-over plow and is funnel shaped to pitch the snow a long ways. However,when going slow it makes nice winrows to blow or scoop up with a loader. Oskosh has made them for years for airports.

yeah they rent them, will rent anything if you have the money.

I'm sure you are wright about cold undesterbed snow, but this was street snow that has been plowed up most of the winter. They were removing it for safety reasons at intersections and main streets where there was no more room for more snow, with these loaders.

They rent all kinds of constrution mahines.
Just get your wallet out $$$$

In Quebec City, they use snowblowers and dump trucks. All of the mailboxes, parking meters and everything we find out at the curb are positioned right next to the buildings so the snowblowers do the streets and sidewalks as well. The dump trucks dump the snow on the ice on the St Lawrence river a short distance away. It really goes fast.

When I saw the title of your post, I thought it was going to be a joke describing a shovel.

UP here they use large blowers on the front of payloaders or oshkosh trucks and turn the chute into the back of a waiting dump truck. That way there is no wasted time dumping a bucket. They just keep on driving and when one dump truck is full he pulls away and the next steps right in.