As soon as they began to build railways, various debris immediately began to appear around them. It was even more in places where stations, train stations, terminals, etc. were built. There was more and more garbage. And it had to be removed. When these are pieces of paper, then a person can handle it. And if you need to remove rubble and other large and heavy debris?
Pennsylvania * vacuum cleaner *.
Already in the thirties, maybe not the first one was built, but as the designers say, it is definitely the largest and most powerful (for that time, of course) vacuum cleaner. It was on the railroad in the American Pennsylvania. There they assembled and constantly improved the world's largest "vacuum cleaner".
Pennsylvania * vacuum cleaner *.
The device was supposed to keep the tracks near the main terminals clean. The powerful machine lifted stone debris and foreign objects from the tracks into a large cleaning chamber, and then redistributes the carefully cleaned “rock” along the rails. The vacuum cleaner performed work at a speed of only three meters per minute.
The Modern Mechanix wrote about this, for that time, a fantastic device in its February 1930 issue. Many years have passed since then, and since the video was not filmed at that time, we use the modern one. Yes, vacuum cleaners still work on the railroad! Meet the modern railway vacuum cleaner - the Fatra travel vacuum cleaner.
"Fatra" is a self-propelled unit, has two cabins, a storage hopper, a compressor vacuum module, as well as a conveyor belt for production and a manipulator with a nozzle - everything is like in the distant 30s of the XX century. Such devices are much more efficient than crushed stone cleaning machines.
Promotional video:
