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Buffeted by snow, MBTA workers found a new way forward


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#1 CNJRoss

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Posted 22 February 2017 - 04:26 PM

Boston Globe, 2/18:
 

Buffeted by snow, MBTA workers found a new way forward

 

They say necessity is the mother of invention. But Michael Haywood was driven by plain embarrassment.

 

The nightmarish winter of 2015 was at its worst, a barrage of powerful storms that brought the MBTA to its knees. In desperation, state officials called in prisoners and the National Guard to help the transit system dig out, one shovelful at a time.

 

For Haywood, an MBTA machinist who fixes snow-clearing equipment, it was a personal affront. There had to be a better way, he thought.

 

So he thought of one: mounting a John Deere vehicle often used to scoop dirt — it’s called a skid-steer loader — onto railcar wheels in order to clear the snow-packed tracks. It sounded farfetched, and some of his colleagues were skeptical.

 

But Haywood and his colleagues kept welding. Over 12 hours, they assembled a new kind of snow blowing machine, bringing Haywood’s vision to life. To the surprise of his naysayers, the contraption worked.

 

Two years later, the MBTA has hired a company to build eight machines based on Haywood’s prototype, a small fleet than can clear miles of track far faster — and more cheaply — than before. In just a couple of hours, the rolling snow blowers can clear areas that under one old method, a jet-fueled melting machine, would have taken nearly a day, and with far greater precision.

 

SNIP

 

 

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