The History and Evolution of Snow Plowing Equipment
In the past, getting rid of the snow was not exactly something to be very concerned about. The first tools designed to do this operation were 100% manual (shovels and brooms). The first machinery appeared in the 1800s; it was used to pack the snow down into a dense trackway, so they didn’t actually clean it away.
Horse-drawn “wedge” plows appeared in the middle of the 1800s, but they were not very efficient either, as it was hard work for the horses and besides, these machines often created large piles of snow blocking side streets.
The rotary snowplow, which was the forerunner of the modern snow blower, was invented in the late 19th century. However, it was tall and designed to be placed on the front of a train engine. These machines got progressively smaller over the next decades, also becoming cheaper and easier to use.
Eventually, they turned into the human-controlled versions that we know today. Many of them combined the truck-mounted snow plows with motorized salt spreading machines, which increased their efficiency.
The snow plow “blade” has also evolved in different ways, for highway use, residential streets and different other locations with their own specific needs.
The snow plowing equipment is not fundamentally different from what it used to be in the late 1800s, but the design has been continually improving.
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