A bit too much snow...

[Kitayama]

Last Sunday a passenger train got stuck in the snow on the line between Kiruna, Sweden and Narvik, Norway. The train was evacuated by the mountain rescue services. Later an ore train also got stuck in the snow. Fortunately, the trains have not been hit by the avalanches that has been running over the railway in the beginning of the week.

 

After a few days, the conditions were better and the trains were cleared by manual snow shoveling as you can see on the pictures in the two links below. Spectacular pictures!

 

http://www.postvagnen.com/forum/index.php?id=1097493

http://www.postvagnen.com/forum/index.php?id=1097745

 

The line is often hit by bad weather in the winter, but this is the most extreme event in the last 50-60 years(?). I travelled the line myself two months ago and the trains were cancelled the day before due to avalanches.

[Kiha66]

Wow, that's some crazy snow!  Looks like Norway could use some rotary plows this year.  Reminds me of the storm that trapped a train here in California in the 1950's, where an avalanche took out the rescue train.

[Suica]

Wow... they even had to call in an Iore.

[cteno4]

Why I don't like snow.

 

Jeff

[Densha]

Wow... they even had to call in an Iore.

That's the first time I've seen an IORE pull a passenger train haha.

 

I still want to go to that area of Sweden sometime, in summer obviously, but it's really difficult to get there. Except by train maybe. ;)

[Welshbloke]

https://youtu.be/-ugIoMD495E

 

How it used to be done here (we just don't get that much snow now)!

 

We did have a weird problem years ago with the wrong sort of snow. Naturally third rate comedians got plenty of material from this, but there was a genuine technical problem. Usually we get wet snow, and trains are designed accordingly. One winter we got a good quantity of dry powdery snow, which was attracted to live electrical circuits, much like powder coating metal.. Once inside it would melt and cause short circuits.

[kvp]

We did have a weird problem years ago with the wrong sort of snow. Naturally third rate comedians got plenty of material from this, but there was a genuine technical problem. Usually we get wet snow, and trains are designed accordingly. One winter we got a good quantity of dry powdery snow, which was attracted to live electrical circuits, much like powder coating metal.. Once inside it would melt and cause short circuits.

Nope, that's still a design fault. Imho circuits open to the outside air should be isolated against water, regardless of the kind, so you should be able to wash the train (including the cooling wents) with a hose while running and it should still not get any short.

[Welshbloke]

You'd think so, but there's been at least one case of a loco suffering serious electrical damage because some wally took a pressure washer to the bogies. The traction motors did not respond well...

[Densha]

Exactly the same problem with trains not built to withstand dry powder snow proved fatal for the Dutch railways as well as few years ago, when there suddenly was a lot of this sort of snow that had for years barely fell.

 

Of course it's possible to build trains so as to withstand this kinda snow, but that is very expensive and barely worth it considering that the 'wrong sort of snow' only falls very rarely.

 

As an example, look at how trains for Hokkaido have much more measures aboard against the cold, snow and ice than some train running around Kyushu. Or even Tokyo, where train lines seem to get to a halt quicker when there's suddenly a lot of snow than in Hokkaido. This is obviously the case for pretty much anywhere in the world.

[utrainia]

Fantastic photos, thanks for finding and sharing those. Amazing to still be getting snow of that magnitude so late in the season. And as for the LKAB team, wow, tough work, I can only imagine what their appetites are like lol.

 

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