UTMC

This is awesome. In Alaska they clear railroad tracks with a Pratt & Whitney J57 (GG3) jet engine mounted to a truck. These are one of the engines I test for industrial use, they used to fly, originally produced in the late 1950's for use on:

J57 (Military)

* Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (dash 1W, 1WA, 1WB)
* Boeing C-135 Stratolifter and KC-135 Stratotanker
* Convair F-102 Delta Dagger (dash 25)
* Convair YB-60 (dash 3)
* Douglas A3D Skywarrior (dash 10)
* Douglas F4D Skyray (dash 8, 8A, 8B)
* Lockheed U-2
* Martin B-57 Canberra
* McDonnell F-101 Voodoo (dash 55)
* North American F-100 Super Sabre (dash 21 and 21A)
* Northrop XSM-62 Snark
* Vought F-8 Crusader (dash

JT3C (Civilian)

* Boeing 707
* Boeing 720
* Douglas DC-8

Now they're used as a giant snow blower! http://www.alaskarails.org/pix/mow/TW-BR-21/index.html

Hehehe, "Hey Jim, umm, can I borrow your Snow Blower?"

Jim "Sure, I'll be right over"

Then Jim shows up with that thing. Hell Yes! I'm sure it would be a big hit with the neighbors too! Use it in the fall for leaf blowing, clean up after (and perhaps during) a party. Crank it up and see if you can get the front wheels up. Oh hell yes, I'm getting one of those as soon as it gets surplussed by the gov. Fun fun for everyone!

Jet engines, is there anything they cannot do?

In East Germany, where high-tech almost always was found only in military hardware, surplus MIG engines (no longer flight-worthy but still working, kinda) were used for snow-plows, cleaning lignite-dust out of hopper cars at the lignite mines, I've seen a picture of a jet engine being used to thaw the actual ground in an open-pit lignite mine in the desaster winter of '79.
Only picture I could find of that contraption:


Engine was just welded to an agricultural tractor, basically.
The lignite miners also pioneered jet-engine fire extinguishers:


Honestly, flying is probably one of the more boring things jet engines are good at...