Pavement cleaning machine TUM-975

In the 1950s the Moscow City Executive Committee intended to radically solve the issue of sidewalk cleanliness. Street and road cleaning had already been mechanized, but in courtyards and on sidewalks there was nothing to replace the manual labor of janitors. For this purpose, it was decided to create a special municipal machine: universal, multifunctional, suitable for work all year round. The development was carried out by the Experimental Mechanical Plant of the Technical Department of the Moscow City Council.

The designers took motorcycle units as a basis, in which they installed the engine of the Moskvich car, first the 407th, and then the 408th model. A comfortable heated cabin was provided for the worker operating the machine. Hydraulics were responsible for raising and lowering the working parts of the TUM-975.

The first experimental samples appeared in 1957 After testing and fine-tuning, small-lot production was established at several capital auto repair plants. The largest number of TUM-975 machines were manufactured at the Moscow Mechanical Plant "Red Route" of the Ministry of Railways. They were used not only in yards: some of the machines worked at train stations until the end of the 1980s, and the last of them worked in St. Petersburg at the Kirovets stadium in the mid-1990s.

The TUM-975 sidewalk cleaning machine is an unusual exhibit for a railway museum, where it was donated for safekeeping by a private individual.

These small, nimble machines worked on the streets and at railway stations in the seventies. The TUM-975s are curious in their design and attractive in appearance. They were produced in small batches, and at several factories.