[PRCo] Snow storms

[Bill Robb]

It's snowing hard and at times you can't see much in front of you. I love snow sweepers as obselete as they may be and traction operations in snow.
In years past transit systems used to put great effort into fighting snow storms. Crews would be send out to keep switches clear. Life guards under the cars would be hooked up against the underside of the car so the lifeguards would not be activated by chunks of ice or hardened snow, Sweepers would be "ordered out" around two-three inches of snow. Empty streetcars would be sent out to run all night on lines which did not normally have all night service.  Running cars up and down the line helps to keep the track open and still continues today. If the snow continued the sweepers would be sent out for additional trips and snow plows would be sent out. Great effort went into maintaining the service. But those days are gone.

Some snow scenes from years past:

http://www.liquala.com/pcc-152.html

http://www.liquala.com/pcc-243.html

http://www.liquala.com/pcc-249.html

Snow sweepers in action:

http://davesrailpix.com/pitts/htm/prys30.htm

http://davesrailpix.com/pitts/htm/prys31.htm

http://davesrailpix.com/pitts/htm/prys32.htm

http://davesrailpix.com/pitts/htm/prys33.htm

http://davesrailpix.com/pitts/htm/pitt043.htm


As Fred Schneider has pointed out, this doesn't happen anymore because transit systems are no longer dependent on fare box revenue to survive. Subsidies continue whether or not the service operates. Battling a snow storm cost a significant amount of money and would probably lead to greater subsidy demands. Cars run late, operators still have to be paid and crews were needed to man sweepers and plows.  

Generally franchise conditions required removal of snow from the streetcar tracks and a certain portion of the street. Also if private companies like  Pittsburgh Railways didn't operate it didn't make any money, but the fixed expenses would continue.

Somewhere about 1970-1973 snow sweepers disappeared from Toronto.  Andrew Maginis recorded the last day in Philadelphia of sweeper operation as February 20, 1972. This almost exactly when transit systems first received operating subsidies.

If you are wondering what you missed here's a You Tube clip of a snow sweeper in operation on a Budapest night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm1PFx3ntAg

Helsinki also has operating snow sweepers.  But these sweepers have a far different appearance than the old sweepers built in the late 1890s and early 1900s:

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/2122_05.jpg

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/h20_76.jpg

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/h26mv_74.jpg

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/h24mvi_74.jpg

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/h24_78.jpg

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/h-21_78.jpg

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/2122_98.jpg

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/2121_87.jpg

http://www.nettilinja.fi/~ahellman/ratikat/helsinki/hkl/hkltyo/tyokuvat/h24mv_74.jpg


 
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