Before
I start snow sweeper stories, what we remember about them, etc.,
let’s give a big thanks to all who made a dream come true . .
. the dream of an operating sweeper at B.S.M. Our snow fall this past
winter was not enough to call out the sweepers as many of us recall
from Baltimore Transit Company days but ours was ready and did give a
preview of things to come. Taking a look at sweeper route #18, sweeper #3211 was assigned
to the Light Street Car House. It would sweep Light Street to Heath
Street, to Hanover Street to Patapsco Avenue, to Curtis Bay loop. It
returned via Curtis Avenue to Patapsco and Pennington Avenues,cross
over, then sweep Fairfield Division. It would return via Patapsco
Avenue to Hanover Street, to Barney Street,to Patapsco Avenue to Heath
Street, to Charles Street, to Barney Street, to Light Street, to the
car house. You can see that while this did cover part of B.T.C. Route#6,
it also covered part of Route #30. Other sweeperroutes covered the
cleaning of Routes #6 and #30. If it was an emergency operation, it
would not sweep theFairfield Loop. World War II would change that,
though. Sweeper route #34 was assigned to sweeper #3217 whichwas
housed at the Roland Park Car House. It would sweep Roland Avenue to
the crossover at the WaterTower, cross over and return to the car
house. Then, it would sweep the loop, return and sweep Roland Avenueto
University Parkway, to Saint Paul Street to 25th Street.It would
“Y” at 25th Street Car House, sweep Maryland Avenue
to Biddle Street, to Pearl Avenue, to LibertyStreet, to Howard Street,
to Camden Street “Y,” then sweep Howard Street to
Liberty Street, sweep the curve north to east at Liberty and Baltimore
Streets, then sweep Liberty Street to Park Avenue, to Biddle Street, to
Maryland Avenue, to 25th
Street,
to Saint Paul Street, to
University Parkway to Roland Avenue, to Lakeside and return to the car
house. If it were an emergency operation, it would not sweep Roland
Avenue north of Belvedere Avenue. The
table on the next page shows the assignment of theBaltimore Transit
Company’s sweepers and plows in 1940. In
looking at the roster, one can only think that the Baltimore Transit
tried to be ready for anything Mother Nature threw at Baltimore. 
Two
Bells Snow Sweeper
By Jerry D.
Kelly
Now that we
have that part out of the way let’s return to the
golden days of sweepers which ended in November1963. The last year of
sweepers operating has been covered in a prior Live Wire. But
let us return to 1940 when the B.T.C., as we like to remember, was
alive and well as a rail operation in Baltimore. At that time, the
company had some 34 sweeper routes. The sweeper route number was not
the
same as a B.T.C. route number. We’ll cover two of those
routes in detail. 1940
BALTIMORE TRANSIT COMPANY SNOW SWEEPER ASSIGNMENTS LOCATION SWEEPER NUMBER (AND ROUTE NUMBER) Belvedere 3221
(9); 3238 (10) Carroll
Park 3220
(17) Cumberland
Street 3226 (7); 3229 (8) Edmondson Avenue 3210
(12); 3209 (13); 3223 (14) Irvington 3212
(16) Light
Street 3204 (19); 3211 (18);
3233 (20) Lombard
Street 3218 (21); 3230 (22);
3236(23); 3237 (24) Montebello
3231 (28); 3232 (29) North Avenue and GayStreet 3224 (27); 3235 (25); 3239 (26) Oak Street 3228
(32); 3227 (33) Park
Terminal 3201 (4); 3202 (1); 3203
(2);3206 (11); 3207 (5); 3208 (6) Retreat Street 3205
(3) Roland
Park 3217 (34) Smallwood Street 3225
(15) York
Road 3214 (30); 3213 (31) EXTRA
SWEEPER ASSIGNMENTS Irvington 3216 Light Street 3222 Lombard Street 3219 North Avenue and GayStreet 3215 Park Terminal 3234 PLOW
ASSIGNMENTS Belvedere 3351; 3356 Edmondson 3353 Irvington 3354 Light Street 3352 Lombard Street 3358
(Reprinted with permission from the Baltimore Streetcar Museum's quarterly newsletter, The Live Wire.
Copyright 1999, The Baltimore Streetcar Museum, Inc. All rights reserved.)
If you like what you saw here,
please tell a friend!
| BSM Home Page | Send A Streetcar Postcard | Select articles from The LiveWire |
Layout and Design Copyright © 1997 by Thom LaCosta
All
Rights Reserved