This bit of snow

[Dave]

I watched the BBC news tonight and 2 things struck me.

I used to work at BAe Systems at Warton Lancashire from 1978 to 1999 and never once was the runway snowed/iced up to close it. Once ploughed, it was treated with something called 'prills'. It was made from cattle pee and the smell was awful.

Remember that very bad, cold and long winter we had in the early eighties, our snow ploughs even went out onto the roads and made the route from Preston to Blackpool passable. Presumably, to get the workers to work.

The second thing I noticed was a driver setting off from the footpath, with his windows cleared, but had what looked like over a foot of snow on his roof. Imagine what that could do to a car following him.

Dave

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not a lot. Driver like that dont go over 3mph when the road is white.

[Huge]

Prilling is a packaging method, rather than a substance, per se. You can get all kinds of things prilled;

[Bob Eager]

Yes, I've seen a few of those. And they don't hang around. So when the warmth inside the car has melted the region in contact with the roof, and they touch the brakes...they suddenly can't see where they're going.........

[Vernon]

I know aircraft de-icing fluid stank something chronic and was to be avoided at all costs, IIRC it was hot pigs piss, urea or something like that.

Also I have to agree about these commercial airports not really playing the game, they obviously do not have enough equipment to move the snow, they should be clearing the whole runway width in one pass. Cost savings again. Ditto the roads & railways.

[Roberts]

All airports are cutting back on staff. They can manage when everything goes according to plan. Then when something happens like this snow, they do not have the staff to cope. The bosses know that after a while it will be forgotten. How many people remember that Willie Walsh was in charge of the Terminal Five disaster? Now he is being praised for improving British Airways! The government let BAA be sold to a Spanish company so are they bothered about British people? All they want is the cash to send back to Spain

Robbie

[The Natural Philosopher]

yawn,. there's always one more 'jobs fer wurkahs' and 'shaft the bosses' around isn't there?

[Nightjar]

fertiliser manufacturer. The specification for the internal bore was that it should just pass a standard paper clip wire, to achieve which I had to have 5,000 metres of stainless steel tube specially drawn.

Colin Bignell

[ARWadsworth]

So it will be ready to fall off just about the time I get onto the motorway...

[PeterC]

They don't look where they're going anyway, so it makes no difference.

[Jethro]

I thought the runways were under-heated ?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I remember Johannesburg airport being closed for snow.

No snow plough for 3000 miles..

[Adam Aglionby]

The Mound, its a downhill section of road, in Edinburgh had, 1960`s electric heating cable, experimental under road heating , given up on becuase it created clouds of steam.

Cheers Adam

[S Viemeister]

I lived a very short distance from the Mound in the late 60s - I don't remember the steam, but I also don't remember the Mound icing-up. I'm pretty sure the roadway was still cobblestones then - did they lift sections of cobbles to lay the cables?

[Nightjar]

On 01/12/2010 23:59, Vernon wrote: ...

It is easy to say they should have more equipment. It is less easy to be in the position of having to justify expenditure on something that may only be used once a decade. Even if they did have the equipment it might not make any difference. Gatwick was advised to close by the Police today because they were closing most of the roads around it while yesterday the railway station was closed by a train that broke down on an important set of points.

Colin Bignell

[cynic]

The RAF in North Yorkshire put urea on the runways to clear ice. Doesn't have the corrosive effect on aircraft skins as salt but the run-off water ends up in the Ouse from where it is taken by the York water company for treatment and use in the town water supply. The urea content then softens the scale/patina on the inside of the old water mains and leads to an increase in the dissolved lead content of the water. Gets a few people hot under the collar!

[Dave]

the runway clear were only bowser drivers and I can see how they mixed up the packaging method and called the product spread on the runway as prills.

Thanks for that

Dave

[Andy Champ]

Pfft, it's an airport. Just fly one in.

Oh wait... :)

Andy

[The Natural Philosopher]

it was only for a single day. Once a century occurrence.

Few people outside Lesotho have ever seen snow in S Africa.

[Vernon]

It is easy to say they should have more equipment, yes, but they should. There must be dozens of vehicles that could be fitted with snow ploughs, even something as small as a landrover. The specialist ice shifting machinery would be freed up to do its job properly and the airport would be open. Whilst I appreciate it may close due to an unusually large volume of snow, it should be possible to clear in a couple of hours. None of this closed for days nonsense.

Same goes for public roads, the councils have dozens of vehicles, why are more of them not adapted for plowing. Snow ploughs are not expensive. If Tesco can afford to buy quad bikes with ploughs and a small grit trailer then I don't see why councils cannot do the same.

If it is a "freak" "one off" "never happen again" event fair enough, but this is not the case. Perhaps the private sector would like to invest? For example the HGV operators might like to buy ploughs for their tractor units, then in bad weather they can assist in keeping roads open, this benefits the HGV operators as they can resume normal operations quicker, and councils would not need as much specialist equipment. The "one off" charges for the assistance would be minimal compared to the billions the experts reckon UK plc loses due to traffic chaos.