Caption: OSR's early March 2015 plow extra is westward on the St. Thomas sub in Beachville flanging the right of way before the next deep freeze. Foreman Jack Hyde who is operating the plow lifts the blades for the west switch Beachville, because if not those blades will hit the rail (ouch!). You can see the flow of snow has momentarily stopped onto the plow. Once they clear the crossing in downtown Beachville they'll lower the blades again. Notice how this late in winter so much snow has fallen it rests above the railhead no matter where you are? That's why they flanged, essentially digs a few inches below the railhead and clears the snow from either side of the rails. If it warms up and freezes it becomes ice and can cause lots of trouble, so they take no chances and flange just in case. Winter 2015 was notoriously bad, OSR must have ran two dozen plows that year, but in 2 weeks you'd hardly know there was any snow at all.. it was gone.