In another thread below, the question came up as to what railroadds would do if they needed a new rotary -- and that the existing rotaries were essentially home-built.

There have been some new railroad rotaries commercially built in Europe in the last ten years or so, though I would have to dig through a lot of magazines to find the specifics.

There are a number of European manufacturers that specialize is small product run equipment, primarily for maintenance of way use. There are some modular components such as trucks and control cabs -- but the rest of the piece is built to the specifications of the buyer.

There is other European-built MoW equipment in use in the U.S.

I assume the major snowfalls in the Alps are just as bad as anything that may happen in the U.S.

I think that in Europe there are even some smaller rotaries used by transit systems and for yard clearing. These don't have one giant wheel but rather two smaller cutting wheels side-by-side.

-- Ernest