Add this to your ever-growing list of things you never knew existed but now desperately need: a BNSF rotary snow blower. The video up top is of a model currently in operation clearing railroad tracks in Aurora, NE, but you'll find them all over the country, churning through formidable heaps of tightly packed snow like so many styrofoam packing peanuts.


Like pretty much all snow blowers, the various models of BNSF rotaries work by virtue of an engine-powered blade that pulls powder into the apparatus before jettisoning it far away from the area being cleared. The only difference is that BNSF's blowers look like someone spliced genes from the Death Star's Concave Dish Superlaser with a Langolier and mated the outcome with a locomotive. Can you think of anything scarier than finding yourself on the business end of one of these monsters? I mean just look at these things:



Terrifying and awesome and terrifying. All at the same time.

[Spotted on boingboing]