So far this winter, threats of snow have mostly fizzled around Clark County. A brief dose of wintry weather earlier in January wasn’t enough to cause widespread disruptions.
If snow really starts falling – and accumulating – we’ll be ready. Snow is serious business for C-TRAN.
Preparations for winter begin months in advance. Every year we update our Adverse Weather Plan, a document that outlines a complete snow and ice protocol for employees across all departments. A major snow event can mean all hands on deck, from the first field supervisors out checking roads at 2 a.m. to the dispatchers working until the last bus comes back to the yard at night.
In the C-TRAN Maintenance department, our team makes sure the fleet is ready for snow and ice before flakes fall. Most of our buses are already equipped with automatic drop-down chains near the rear wheels. Those can be deployed by the driver when the vehicle is already in service, meaning there’s no need to bring the bus back to the shop to chain up. Many C-VAN vehicles also have drop-down chains.
But drop-down chains are deployed when there’s relatively little snow on the ground. In a major snow event – think several inches or more – our Maintenance crews put cable chains on dozens of buses. That’s no easy task, but it’s necessary to make sure our vehicles have enough traction to get around and keep the system running.
Wondering what the process looks like? Take a peek behind the scenes: