Old time traction

[Terry Toenges]

Someone just posted this on a St. Louis Facebook site that I'm on. It's from 1909 at Broadway and Lucas in St. Louis.  The caption said 1909 but someone else said it might be later than that.

[Trainman203]

Man. ☃️❄️😱 That picture makes me glad I live on the mostly snow free Gulf Coast.😎

[Terry Toenges]

I had never seen one like the one in front.

[Len]

I vaguely remember something like the one in front being used to haul maint crews around, and clear flangeways, when I was a kid living in St. Louis back in the 40's.

Len

[jward]

Trainman, living in the south you miss all the fun. There's nothing like the spark show trolleys make in an ice storm. They create their own fireworks.

I am wondering if the one in front is equipped with a sleet cutter to remove ice from the overhead wire. Severe arcing from loss of contact due to ice has been known to burn down the overhead. Then everything comes to a halt.

[ebtnut]

The unit in front is a snow sweeper.  Under that tarp curtain is a big brush equipped with reed bristles to clear the track.  We had a similar one at our local trolley museum until a devastating fire destroyed about half their collection.  In the photo, its hard to say what has happened.  Might be that the track is iced up under the snow and the sweeper can't move.  Since the cars all seem to be lit, icing of the trolley wire is probably not a factor. 

[Trainman203]

That picture looks like it could be in The Polar Express.  The lighting is mystical.

[Terry Toenges]

Trainman - You'd better make sure you are sitting down before you look at this one. There is some serious overhang going on here.  
https://scontent-lax3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/48413952_2143888932300852_4746939323171995648_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-2.xx&oh=6a98563c6b0e8b82fff374753b0f9908&oe=5C96996A

[Len]

Speaking of the Eads Bridge, poking around on the East St. Louis side shows theire's even a prototype for an oval with a "spaghetti bowl" of yard tracks in the middle...
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.5912857,-90.1438598,2542m/data=!3m1!1e3

Len

[Len]

Here's a slight sharper version of the 'overhang' pic. It makes it clearer to see, what looks like white lines connected to the trolley in the first pic, are actually spreaders for overhead wires.


Len

[Terry Toenges]

The overhang is more visible is this one.

[Trainman203]

Yeah, Terry!  😂 reminds me of people trying to get a Big Boy around a train set curve!🤭😱😂  They never  learn.

Not in the Bach Man's purview, but I do believe that a well known larger-scale outfit has done that!

[bbmiroku]

Looks like the 'Downtown' Brill Trolleys...