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Double header plow in Tignish fighting snow on the Western line, February 23, 1940. After a big storm, it could sometimes take more than ten days for a train to fight through the snow from Tignish to Summerside-- only an hour drive by car. The cuttings the plow would leave behind were so high that passengers could see nothing out their windows but snowbank. The pole climbers recruited to check the telegraph wires often did not have to climb any poles at all, because the banks reached the crossbars. But these cuttings did not make everyone's lives easier. Occasionally, men hired as snow shovelers would by killed by unexpected trains-- the cuttings were too high for them to climb off the track. (Lowell Huestis)