[PRCo] Re: Snow storms

[Boris Cefer]

And these were old sweepers in Ostrava, CZ. Only one of them has been
preserved after new vehicles (also attached) were put in service in the 90s.
B

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Robb" <bill937ca at yahoo.ca>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 4:32 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Snow storms


> 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.
>
>
> 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.
>


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