Two rotary snow plows parked at Roseville Ca.

Two rotary snow plows parked at Roseville Ca.

Image by Loco Steve
A Brief History of the Rotary Snowplow

The first rotary plow was designed in 1869 by Toronto dentist J.W. Elliot. His design, similar to but more primitive than the later Leslie type, was never built. Several other early plow ideas also died a similar death. Some were constructed in prototype form and scrapped, while others never were constructed at all.. These included the Hawley plow, the Marshall plow, the Blake Machine Plow and the Kryger steam snow shovel.
The first successful rotary plow was designed by Canadian Orange Jull. He had the plow built by the Leslie Brothers, owners of a machine shop, and tested it in the winter of 1883-84. The Leslies’ soon purchased the manufacturing rights to the plow and went into business building ‘Leslie type’ rotaries. This is the type of plow most people think of when you say ‘rotary.’ It has one large circular plow blade rotating on a shaft parallel to the tracks.

Between 1885 and 1903 the Leslies had 62 plows (plus 2 for export) built by several locomotive works. They then sold the rights to the plows to ALCo. However, the Leslies’ company exists to this day. From 1905 to 1937 ALCo built 67 plows (plus 4 for export). Two homebuilt, 42 inch gauge Leslie plows were built by Reid Newfoundland. Lima-Hamilton built the last four commercially produced steam rotaries (and the last commercial Leslie types) in 1949-50, under license from ALCo.

Five homebuilt Leslie types (4 diesel, 1 electric) were built between 1950 and 1971. The one plow constructed in 1971, by Union Pacific, was the last Leslie type built. Over the years Leslies were built in US Standard Gauge, 3 foot gauge, and 42 inch gauge, and possibly other gauges for export. Of the 146 known Leslie type plows, there are 41 known survivors, and 5 probable/unconfirmed survivors. I took this photo from the California Zephyr December 2010
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