Santa Fe GP30/35/38 snow plow

[faraway]

I looked after a series of photos of Santa Fe GP30, GP35 and GP38 engines in the times frame 1970 - 1979.
None of the GP30 and GP35 had a snow plow while the most GP38 had one. Most photos have been shot at the same prominent locations in the south west. The engines have been used in regular freight overland freight service (no switching in sunny SoCal). I think the higher elevated areas of the south west have lots of snow in the winter.
How come the GP30 and GP35 had no snow plow installed while most GP38 had serving the same locations on the photos?

[lajry]

Snow or no snow pre-'70s Santa Fe 4 axle GPs never got plows. Guess 4+ unit lash ups never had much of a problem w/ snow. But 4 axles like the the GP38s did spent most of their time back east doing road switch work. The SD45-2s did come w/ plows when new. And the other 6 axles got them when remanufactured.

[faraway]

It was my assumption that the plow is required to get the snow controlled out of the way of a powerful lash up of engines. Otherwise would the snow creep under the first engine, become more and more compressed and finally lift the first engine up and results in a derail.
A single engine might simply get stuck in to much snow.

[jwb]

I believe the last order of straight SD45s also had plows. I think there are several factors in the plow question. One was that the winters in the 1970s were colder and snowier than the winters in the 1950s and 60s. Earlier, only a few lines like the SP, D&RGW, and GN had plows on (some of) their locos. The thinking of the industry seems to have changed during the 1970s, the winters being a major factor. (It's been pointed out that during the 1970s, the "scientific" conventional wisdom was that we were in for global cooling, not global warming.) However, there were other good reasons to have plows, since they deal with medium-size rocks on the right of way, shopping carts, etc as well.

A couple of other things -- the Santa Fe got a great deal of snow in Kansas as well as the higher elevations farther west. The GP30s and 35s were often in switching service from the 1960s on as well.