More snow!!!

Had to go to Palmy in a car this morning and bring back 526. What a mission!!!

My car after I got to work.

The picture above shows my car in the carpark at Whareroa after getting to work, and the car next to it is the rental I had to take to Palmy. I drove off down the road in it and wondered why the headlights wernt working, but then realised I had to stop and clear the snow off them so I could see the road!!
Driving to Palmy in a blizzard for most of the way was certainly a fortifying experience!!

Snowing hard at Whareroa, just before 2am this morning.

I encountered many heavy falls of snow on the way down to Palmy, but it wasnt actually snowing in Palmy itself.
I had DXB5137 and DC4219 on 526 this morning, with 879t of tonnage for New Plymouth. A heavy train for the power provided and it was certainly slow going in places.
I found the snow again at Feilding and by the time I got to Marton it was snowing heavily again.

Stopped for a warrant in the heavy snow.

Back in the cab at Marton.

There was plenty of snow all the way along the MNPL, including most of the Okoia valley to the south of Wanganui, and even up the Westmere, which made conditions tough going for an already on the limit train. No problems though using a little experience gleened from the Otira banker drivers and some tricks taught to me by my peers during my days in Auckland man-handling DFT's with overloaded NAL trains up the the hill to Remuera from NewMarket.....

Most defiantly a day to remember, and after a nana nap at home, the family built a snowman in the back yard and had a snowball fight :-)