Ah, the joys of railroading in the winter. A plow extra crew from the Sumpter Valley Railroad is forced to stop and deal with ice jams in the flanges at a grade crossing just east of Sumpter, Oregon. The Sumpter Valley normally isn't running in late January, but they've got a 2-day, winter photo charter that begins the next morning and they've got to get their track usable all the way from McEwen to Sumpter. Unfortunately, the local snow plows have been continually compacting snow in the flangeways at the crossings, and the daily freezing and thawing cycle has left them nothing but a block of solid ice. One might think that 90 tons of locomotive and tender would easily pulverize that ice, but one would be wrong in that thinking. In reality, it could easily put that locomotive in the dirt. It will take these men about 20 minutes of hacking, chipping and pounding before they'll be ready to bring that engine forward. Even then, they will do it slowly and gingerly, carefully watching the wheels on both sides, until their mighty Alco is completely clear of the crossing.
