Curious about ploughing runways
Reading this thread, watching the videos and looking at the pictures, it would seem that Gatwick has only snow ploughs, and not snow blowers, to clear the runways - and presumably all the other bits of the airport. It looks like the ploughs drive in echelon and are, perhaps, towing brushing units to clean up the snow that the ploughs leave behind. Can anyone explain what happens to the snow when it has been pushed to the edge of the runway? The runway edge lights are on small stalks, but it seems to me that as soon as there is any significant amount of snow, they must end up buried in a snow bank. Do they have to dig them out individually? Presumably at airports where they expect a lot of snow, they use blowers to blow the snow well clear of the runway edge.