Railway Snowplow Made in 1929 Gets Ready for Snow Season; Test Run Begins for Familiar Winter Sight on Kuroishi, Aomori Pref., Railway

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:02 JST, December 25, 2024

HIROSAKI, Aomori — A test run of a railway snowplow was conducted on Konan Tetsudo Co.’s Konan Line on Dec. 6 ahead of the arrival of the heavy snow season.

The Ki-104 Russell snowplow was manufactured in 1929 at the now-defunct Japanese National Railways’ Naebo factory in Sapporo and acquired by the Aomori Prefecture railway company in 1968.

Unable to run on its own, an ED333-class electric locomotive, which was built in 1923 by Westinghouse, pushes the snowplow from behind.

Snow removal by the old train is now a familiar winter scene on the railway.

The test run began at Kuroishi Station with a check of whether the flanger, which removes snow from the tracks, and the wings, which fling snow around the tracks, were working properly. The cars then headed to Hiraka Station.

The snowplow ran only four times on the Konan Line last season due to a mild winter and low snowfall. However, during one winter in the past, it ran 44 times.