[PRCo] Re: Snow

[Bill Robb]

  I'm more familiar with the situation in Toronto, but I can tell you the TTC definitely had route assignments for sweepers and plows.  Individual sweepers or plows would have a definite route which included short turn loops along the route and non revenue trackage.  There were daytime and nighttime plow routes.  All sections of the system were covered. But routes were not cast in stone depending on the intensity of the storm. Also all storms do not hit an entire city with equal intensity, particularly when you sit on the shore of Lake Ontario.
   
  The battle against the elements on February 1, 1951 got full coverage in the Toronto Star of the day on the front page and page 2:
   
    "Six and one-half inches of snow fell in Toronto during the night and another inch was forecast for today…
   
  The TTC sent 30 men out to work soon after midnight clearing snow from switches, and 28 more were working at car houses, loops and safety islands.  By 3 a.m., those at the switches went up to 42, and the number shoveling and sweeping snow from the loops and other bad points was up to 160.  A score of trucks, three snow loaders and three scrapers were put into service.  From 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. 19 power sweepers were cut clearing tracks as well as eight track plows. Eight motor plows operated over bus routes until 7 a.m. and those routes had little snow on them, but they were slippery."
   
  At the end of 1950 the TTC was operating 929 streetcars and 105 trailers, including 541 PCCs.
   
  Other measures would be taken to keep the cars running.  Life guards would be hooked up against the under side of the car floor to avoid getting tangled in the snow.  Empty streetcars would be sent out to run up and down the line--because running cars helps to keep the line open and I've seen this done by TTC at 3 a.m. within the last two years.
   
  What Toronto did is typical of what the industry did in former days.
   
  The only remaining  snow sweeper outside a trolley museum that I'm aware of is New Jersey Transit 5246 , a 1926 Russell Car & Snowplow product, (ex-TTC S-39 1947-1973) and ex-New York City (1934-1947) and ex-Trenton (1926-1934). It ran as recently as January 23, 2005 on the Newark City Subway. 
   
  Bill Robb 
   
  

Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
  
My own next question would be, would there have been a general plan 
written up that listed routes in order that you plow snow. Toward 
that end maybe we should ask Tony DiSensi at PTM what he 
remembers. If I were part of a Keating supervisory team, for 
example, routes 12 and 21 would probably be the last two routes I 
would want my sweeper crews to worry about. I think I would want 
them to do 8 first because it generates the most revenue, followed by 
perhaps 13 and 6 and then 10/15. And maybe they had such a plan. 
Sadly, the last Pittsburgh Railways snow was in March 1964. And most 
people who worked for the company then are six feet under today. 
It's hard to find anyone to ask.



  



			
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