The New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT) is deploying a new tool in its snowplowing arsenal for winter maintenance operations. Motorists will soon be seeing a Tow Plow being tested for possible future widespread use on New Hampshire highways.

The Tow Plow is a trailer mounted, 26-foot plow that is towed behind a 10-wheeled plow truck. It has the capability of plowing and treating with salt an entire additional lane of roadway at normal highway speeds when completely deployed. The entire trailer unit can shift to the right or left, depending on the model, utilizing movable axles on the trailer unit as well as hydraulic controls between the truck and trailer.

“The Tow Plow has a lot of potential applications on sections of interstate highways and turnpikes in New Hampshire where the number of lanes may vary,” says NHDOT Highway Maintenance Engineer Caleb Dobbins. “It can take the place of another plow truck by allowing one truck to plow two lanes of roadway.”

The tow plow will first be tested in northern New Hampshire in the Franconia Notch area. The unit will eventually be transferred to sections of Interstate 93 in the Manchester area, as well as sections of Interstate 95 along the seacoast. It’s anticipated that there will be many uses of this type of snowplowing innovation in other parts of the state.

There are currently about 200 tow plows in use by Departments of Transportation throughout the United States, including approximately 70 by the Missouri DOT. In New England, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts have tested, purchased and deployed a number of these units.

Viking-Cives Corporation, of Harrisville, New York, manufactures the patented Tow Plow.