There is a "national road grit reserve" of sorts - it's located in New Road, WInsford, Cheshire, outside the Salt Union mine. There's some pictures in this article -
Mike
We get days out here where the only things moving are snowmobiles - most of the roads have big ditches which serve as designated snowmobile trails.
Maybe that's the answer. Or rail. Or giant trebuchet. ;-)
"Only"? Sure you don't mean mm? 40cm will stop most vehicles; the ground clearance on a discovery is only 24cm, and I suspect it would struggle with 40cm, even with 4wd and proper tyres.
Unless of course rolled flat, which can happen with the right traffic. In which case depth is immaterial.
Andy
You said a naughty word.... Can't have that.
Was it foggy last night? Freezing fog will encase things in thick layer of hoar frost:
You need traffic to mix the salt but many places are so near capacity under normal conditions if everything has to slow down to sub 30mph it just stops. Once it' has stopped the gritters can't get out either, bit of a Catch 22.
Think what happens if there is a prang on a busy road during the rush hour under good weather conditions. Have poor conditions, drivers that think the way to drive on snow is to have as many wheels spinning as possible and lots of small "incidents" it's no wonder it ends up in grid lock.
Well I guess different chemicals are needed in your part of the world as it gets below 0F... That very rarely happens here so most of the time good 'ole salt is enough. They do adjust how much they lay down depending on the expected conditions.
Around here there are at least two "farmers" who have plough and grit attachments for their tractors and are subcontracted by the council, but is after lessons learnt last winter. The snow blower is also privately owned.
There are also numerous ancient JCBs, particulary at places with long private drives/tracks, but I expect they are all SORN'd so not allowed on the public highway and probably fuelled by red diesel so another hurdle to jump through for road use.
24/7 operation available here. Mind you they have to if it starts to drift in any sort of meaningful manner otherwise it'll build up so the ploughs can't get through, even with the pointy plough rather than the shove to the side type.
When it's drifting badly they just keep driving around and around trying to keep some semblance of a route open. They'll come past us about every hour but by the time they are due to pass again you'd hardly be able to tell they had been through just an hour before as the previous track would be filled back in. We are talking 2' or more depths as well.
40 mm is just a heavy frost. B-) Shouldn't stop any vehicle, that has decent "all season" tyres. Slow 'em down certainly as stopping distances will be some what longer but not stop.
A lot depends on the snow. I flumphed through several drifts around
100cm the other day but that was fresh, dry powder, very light and flows almost like water.Conversely I have been stopped by just an inch or so of firm snow on the central hump catching the bottom of the front valance. That is higher than the bottom of the diff housings which is what the quoted ground clearance measures to. The diffs can be can be pushed through snow but not rocks... Disco II (permenant 4WD) with winter tyres.
Yes, I know your area well from the 70s when your TV relay started. The local council is an urban area so they think. Next door in N yorks they do actually plough the roads. locally they only seem to grit most of the time, even with plough equipped lorries, despite having some rural black (or is it white) spots.
A lot of areas (used to) do that. government constraints on local councuilss and several warm winters have caused them to reduce the contracts with farmers. Often they did more than was required, which also helped their milk tankers get through.
I can do 30cm of heavy stuff with the car and snow tyres *just* - but it's a lot of back-and-forth to try and compact the snow and drive over the top of it as much as possible, rather than driving through it. I've only bothered for the sakes of getting the car from one end of the driveway to the other when it's like that, and I'm not sure I'd fancy chances with 40cm at all :-)
cheers
Jules
I had to smile yesterday morning. The council grit lorry was refilling the grit bin in our side road. The next thing I heard was the loud reving of it's engine because the grit lorry could not get moving due to the slight uphill slope in the road which had not been gritted.It was a tipper truck on ordinary road tyres. They did make it in the end I suppose they used there own grit! Alan
There is that, of course, but with over 170 miles of tunnels, the main supplier does have a fair bit of room to store mined and graded salt in ideal conditions.
Colin Bignell
And yet there are still fools who think it would be "good for the economy" if the population went up further.
Then they wouldn't be unemployed. But I agree with the idea.
But you don't have any hills there? I guess we have had about the same amount of snow but many roads are impassable, even by 4x4s.
The fact that they haven't gritted most of the roads is also a factor.
Same here.
Don't worry the Eton twins are well on their way to make it much worse.
I wonder why he takes any notice of these regulations. There's no Police in the country anyway.
Because if he doesn't, he won't get paid.
Oh, there would be if they thought there was an easy arrest available. Much easier to bust a farmer for using red diesel to clear snow than chase down crack dealers.
HMRC *will* let them use red diesel for snow clearing (not gritting if the gritter isn't a permanant part of the vehicle)
My mistake. Yes. less than 2"
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