wheel shown at the left, which has been taken from an old motor-cycle. The wheel was found to work better than a guide rod or chain. The truck carries several barrels of paint, a quick-drying, especially prepared mixture. Black paint is used on concrete paving, and white paint for black top paving.

According to E. M. Richter, in the News Service of the Minnesota Highway Department, operators report that results are best at a truck speed of 12 miles per hour.

New Machine in Illinois

The machine which has been developed by the Illinois Division of Highways under Clifford Older, Chief Highway Engineer, for marking the traffic lines on concrete roads, performs its work with great facility and a high degree of satisfaction. It is not claimed that the machine has been perfected to any great degree, but with it, it is possible to paint a 41⁄2-inch strip on the pavement at a rate of 10 miles per day with

4 men. The material used is a semi-brown asphalt, which is the same material used in filling cracks in concrete pavement. The machine has an attachment for sanding.

In the upper illustration may be seen a long stretch of concrete highway with the center strip painted on. This photograph has not been retouched and shows with remarkable clearness the even, distinct strip. The photograph at the left shows the asphalt heating equipment and the sand box as well as the wheel which is used as a guide. This apparatus is towed behind a truck and is guided by a man seated at the wheel shown in the extreme left of the lower lefthand photograph. This makes it possible to maintain the painted strip at the proper distance from the side of the road when proceeding at a uniform speed, no matter what variation there may be in the path of the towing truck. The right-hand illustration shows the opposite side of the machine, with the nozzle through which the asphalt is fed to the pavement, and the sanding device.

A

The Costs of Snow Removal

CTUAL costs of removing snow are difficult to secure, as most cities make use of their regular street cleaning or street department employees for this work and charge only the item of extra labor to snow removal. In Plainfield, N. J., A. W. Vars, City Engineer, states that the removal of snow from the business streets is done by a special force of laborers, transportation being by the city's cwn trucks, occasionally reinforced by h red trucks or teams in emergencies. Last winter they spent about $5,000 for extra labor.

P. L. Minor, Superintendent of Highways, Greenwich, Conn., reports that the total cost for clearing snow from 140 miles of road in Greenwich last winter was about $6,500.

According to a report from Chicago, four men, comprising the crew of a BarberGreene snow loader, were able to do the work of 50 shovelers at an estimated saving of $450 per 8-hour shift. Public Works Commissioner Robinson of Schenectady, N. Y., reported that the acquisition of a new snow-loading machine brought the cost of snow removal in Schenectady down to about 40 or 50 per cent of the earlier fig

ures.

The pay-roll during the winter of 1922-23 amounted to about $4,000 a week after the machine had been installed.

In New York City considerable reduction in cost has been effected through the intro'uction of modern methods and equipment, beginning in 1920. The zenith of efficiency. and effectiveness was reached last winter when all of the equipment contracted for by the Department of Street Cleaning had been delivered and was called into service. The total fall of snow was 55.1 inches and

idea of the problem of removal may be had when it is realized that 36,000,000 square yards of street area had to be cleared, making a total of 55,100,000 cubic yards, weighing an average of 10

WHITE TRUCK EQUIPPED WITH CHAMPION PLOW REMOVING SNOW IN SIDE STREET IN NEW YORK CITY

pounds to the cubic foot. This volume is 21 times the volume of the large Municipal Building which houses the offices of all the municipal departments with the exception of the Mayor's. To do this work required 6,000 regular employees, 10,000 emergency laborers, and 1,000 vehicles from December 28, 1922, to March 17, 1923. including Sundays and holidays, a period of So consecutive days. The succession and depth of the various snow falls in New York City last winter were as follows:

Reports from City and County Officials Plainfield, N. J.-A. W. Vars, City Engineer, reports that they plow their sidewalks with eight horse-drawn plows. The roadways of the principal streets are cleaned with plows attached to motor trucks. They have three plows-one Baker with an 8foot blade and two Champions with 10-foot blades. Besides this, local bus company which operates to the adjoining town of South Plainfield uses similar apparatus to clean the streets over which it runs. They district the city for each machine and lay out routes in such a way that throughout most of the city very few persons are more than two blocks from a cleared street. There is also a special "blizzard" schedule, including the principal highways throughout the city, over which plows are operated continuously in exceptionally heavy storms. They employ a sufficient number of drivers to enable them to operate the plows contin uously day and night as soon as the snow has reached a depth of 4 or 5 inches, as this is thought to be vital to the successful solution of any snow-cleaning problem.

The street railway tracks in Plainfield are cleaned by motor plows and sweepers operated by the street railway company. Under its franchise the company must remove from the streets all snow swept from the tracks. This rule is not enforced in outlying sections, but there is a working agreement with the street railway company under which it pays half the cost of snow removal on the busy streets in the center of the city.

Poughkeepsie, N. Y.-In the main streets of Poughkeepsie there are trolley tracks and the space between the tracks and the curbstone on either side of the roadway is not very wide. According to a report from Burges Johnson in Collier's Weekly, the trolley company first clears off its right of way and throws the snow to one side of the street or the other. Then the storekeepers open up their shops and shovel the snow off the full width of their strips of sidewalk, throwing it into the streets. The result of this, after even an ordinary storm, is that there is a worse traffic jam than

there would have been if nobody had shoveled any snow at all. Heaped up snowbanks fill the two strips of roadway on each side of the track, and there is really more cleared space for pedestrians than for vehicles.

Mr. Johnson then reports the state of affairs in another town which he admits may have been in his dreams, but nevertheless the scheme is worth recording, as it has a practical application. In this mythical town the trolley removes its own snow as fast as it shovels it, and the storekeepers are not permitted to shovel all of their snow into the streets promiscuously, but into piles 8 feet apart and approximately 8 feet square. Each of these ples rests mostly on the sidewalk and partly in the street, about 3 feet of depth projecting beyond the curb, making it easier for the street commissioners' trucks and carts to carry it off.

Johnsburg, N. Y.-According to Charles S. Kenwell, Supervisor, town of Johnsburg, Weavertown, Warren County, N. Y., by the end of January, 1923, there was 4 feet of snow throughout the county. The 18foot roadway was cleaned with a Baker plow mounted on a Ricker 5-ton truck, piling the snow as high as 4 feet at the side of the road. Failure to get the plow into operation early in December made it impossible to have the roadway open to its full width.

Greenwich, Conn.-P. L. Minor, Superintendent of Highways, reports that the snow-removal equipment in Greenwich consists of two large and one small Mack truck. one Nash truck and one GMC truck, each equipped with a Champion snow-plow. Each truck has a particular district to cover when snows begin. The roads in the thickly settled parts of the town are first taken care of, then the main lines of travel through the town, and finally the secondary roads. The snow is attacked as soon as enough has fallen for the plows to act upon. addition to the equipment mentioned above, the town is fortunate in having the cooperation of a number of the large estates, whose owners aid in caring for the outlying sections of the town. The men manning the trucks take great pride in their work and make it a point to keep their districts quickly and thoroughly cleaned up. Mr. Minor says, "It is to these men, rather than

In

to anyone else, that we owe any good reputation we may have."

Watertown, Wis.-Reports from Watertown, Wis., signed by the Postmaster and by the City Clerk, show that during March, 1923, the severe snow-storms would have completely tied up mail deliveries and made most of the city streets and country roads impassable to traffic had it not been for the work of a Monarch tractor equipped with a 10-foot locomotive snow-plow. Roads were broken open to permit the delivery of mail and the transportation of materials for the local merchants and factories. Some of these conditions surpassed any experienced in recent winters.

Woodbury, N. Y.-W. A. McClellan, Town Supervisor, reports that the town appreciated the importance of keeping the roads open during the winter months and that two public meetings were called to discuss the proposition of raising funds by taxation for the purchase of suitable machinery to clear the roads. At this meeting it was the unanimous opinion of those present that machinery should be purchased and taxes levied to pay for it. A special election was held in the town, and the question was submitted to the voters whether or not $8,000 should be raised for snow-removal machinery by taxation. The proposition was carried in the affirmative by twothirds of the total vote. A 10-ton Caterpillar tractor with a 30-inch straight blade snow-plow was purchased. Before the tractor arrived there was an accumulation of about one foot of snow on the roads from the winter storms. The tractor cleared this without any difficulty and continued to keep the roads clear throughout the winter. Woodbury is the firsttown in the county to purchase a tractor of this size for snow cleaning and they have reason to believe that the results obtained in keeping the roads clear materially helped in the decision of the Board of Supervisors of Orange County last winter to place its order for four 10-ton Holt tractors of the same type as that in operation in the town of Woodbury. The

machine travels at the rate of about four miles an hour and is operated by two men. They figure that it should do the work for at least ten years in the same satisfactory manner in which it has cleaned up snow-storms which previously kept them laboring for days with all the forces they could command.

Portland, Maine.-R. B. Redfern reports that a 10-ton Holt tractor equipped with a Sargent plow kept the 12-mile road from Yarmouth to Portland clear throughout last winter. The road is of macadam construction and is paralleled throughout the entire 12 miles by an electric car track. Last winter the total snowfall was 10 feet 11⁄2 inches, which was the largest fall since the Weather Bureau records began in 1871. During one storm in January the engine became disabled, which was not surprising, as the machine was one built during war time and had been neglected since being turned over to the state. While repairs were being made, automobile traffic could not use the roads. With the exception of that one incident, automobiles ran the entire distance between Yarmouth and Portland throughout last winter. The 15 miles of road beyond Yarmouth to Brunswick was not opened until about the middle of April and no automobiles had been run over it for more than three months, while the first automobile traffic between Saco and Portland came through on April 4 over a very rough and difficult road which had not been taken care of by any snow-removal outfit during the winter.

Hibbing, Minn.-Martin Welch, Police Commissioner, Hibbing, Minn., reports that last winter one of the snow-plows owned

IN GREENFIELD, MASS,

by the town of Stuntz, hauled by a 10-ton Holt tractor, did some remarkable work, as the fall was exceptionally heavy, being nearly 5 feet deep on the level. This was aggravated by the fact that because of the extremely high winds and cold weather, the snow packed so hard that it was almost impossible to shovel it. The drifts were so hard that the tractor would run up on top of them and would stand there almost on end, then spin until it dug down to a solid footing, and as soon as any traction was secured the plow would be hauled ahead one tractor-length and the operation repeated again and again until the drifts had been penetrated. The tractor was run night and day during the whole winter. The snow was piled so high along the roads that fresh snow was crowded back outside of the right of way to 50 feet from the center of the road. The plow used weighs over 6,000 pounds and has a wing spread of 26 feet, the wings being 31⁄2 feet high.

Keiser, W. Va.-According to B. E. Gray, Division Engineer, State Road Commission of West Virginia, stationed at Keiser, W. Va., the snowfall during the winter of 1922-23 was relatively light and at infrequent intervals. On the Winchester and Williamsport Pikes, leading from Martinsburg, a total distance of 25 miles, a Champion snow-plow attached to the front of an FWD 3-ton truck was used. No difficulty was experienced when the removal was completed before the snow had had time to harden either from traffic or from thawing and freezing. It is good practise to start with the snow-plow before the snow has ceased falling, for the snow is then loose and can easily be pushed to one side. They have found such a difference in this regard that it is now standard practise to have the snow-plows start operations as soon as 6 inches of snow has fallen. In Morgan County on the 6 miles of concrete road from Berkeley Springs to Hancock, Md., truck snow-plow equipment is not justified on account of the expense. At the same time, it is very necessary to remove the snow from this road so that traffic can keep on the concrete pavement and prevent the cutting up of the earth shoulders. An experiment was made by using a light earth road grader, drawn by horses and later hauled by a truck. The blade of the grade was set to throw the snow from the center

of the road to one side, and perfectly satisfactory results were obtained at a low cost. Where there is 20 miles or more of continuous highway to clear, however, it is found that the truck equipment is the more economical on account of the speed with which the operation can be carried on. During the coming winter, it is expected that snow removal will be carried on over 50 or 60 miles of road. Both Champion and Baker plows have been used, but it was found that a 21⁄2-ton truck was not heavy enough to adequately handle the snow-plow attachment. A 3-ton truck, however, provides the necessary power.

Somers, Westchester County, N. Y.According to Thomas Flood, Superintendent of Highways, Town of Somers, Westchester County, N. Y., the question of snow removal is a serious one in a rural community where most of the people commute and are forced to get to their trains by automobile. Last winter a 3-ton motor truck with a 10-foot Baker snow-plow mounted in front of the truck was used in Somers with highly satisfactory results, as the heavy snows were not drifted very badly. They start just as soon as the snow begins, and shove it back as far as possible to make room for the snow of the next storm. Experience shows that if any of the snow is left on the road there is liable to be a thaw and freezing which will make the roadway a sheet of ice, giving no satisfactory traction for the truck. Some people complain that it is a waste of money to operate a truck and snow-plow after a small snowfall, but it is absolutely necessary to keep the roads clear.

Weymouth, Mass.-While in other towns near-by the roadways were deep in snow last winter so that trucks and motor cars had to wallow their way along or get stuck for hours at a time in deep snow-drifts. the streets of Weymouth were maintained smooth and hard. According to Irving E. Johnson, Superintendent of Streets, Weymouth, Mass., enough snow was left for the use of farmers' sleighs, yet not enough to hinder the heavy commercial trucks and passenger cars passing through the town. The winter of 1921-22 did not furnish enough snow to give the Champion plow owned by the city a good test, but it was used steadily during the winter of 1922-23 on a 22-ton truck,