Classic rail routes through the Alps reopen

I live near a railyard that is almost at sea level, but it it's less than 70 miles from an over 7,000 ft mountain pass, so they keep some pretty intense snow removal equipment in the rail yard, when its not in use.

This is in California, where the highest point of the mountain pass averages tens of feet of snow, but most years are less than that, with one or two years every decade making up for it in excess precipitation. Having a huge difference between mean and median precipitation means that most years are in drought, and during the ones that aren't everything floods twice, once when it rains and again when the tremendous snowpack melts.

Anyway, the extreme snowpacks mean that the rail company has to be prepared with equally extreme equipment. They don't just have snowplows, but snowblowers wider than the locomotive its attached to. To make them even scarier looking, the body is painted black, with the blades painted bright red. It looks like the circular maw of some kind of eldritch abomination. I suppose they want it to look as intimidating as it is dangerous.

If you want to see one, do an image search for "union pacific rotary snowblower". They are even more intimidating in real life.