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Sweeping in Italy |
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Italian Municipality's Vehicle Restoration Museum Infoby Giovanni Fossa' with Ranger Kidwell-Ross 
The "Historical Garage of the Municipal Warehouses Montecchio Maggiore" (Vicenza – Italy), which we initially published an article about in April 2014, now has a website and a YouTube channel.Editor's Note: In 2012 the WorldSweeper office was contacted from Italy by Giovanni Fossa'. He discussed the planned 'garage museum' his municipality of Montecchio Maggiore was creating and that one of the items they were restoring for the project was a Mobil 2TE3. However, they needed help finding out info on the sweeper, including, ideally, an owner's manual and restoration details. We put Fossa' in contact with David Dubbioso, proprietor of Tri-State Industrial Maintenance. Dubbioso is, as far as we know, the top refurbisher of Mobils in the U.S. In 2014, we wrote an article for the WorldSweeper website to describe how well the project turned out for the municipality after a little help from the city's new U.S.-based friends.
The little museum displays a 1974 Mobil Sweeper 2TE3 model, to which the website and the YouTube channel dedicate ample space, with various pictures, videos and information.
"The workers of the Municipality of Montecchio are very attached to the old sweeper," say
Giovanni Fossa' and Francesco Albera, curators of the "Historical Garage", "and for all visitors it is a surprise to find a so special vehicle (at least in Italy!), especially school children during the educational visits."
The web site contains, in the "Presentation" section, a small English-language brochure, which for convenience has been archived here on the WorldSweeper website. From Very interesting on the YouTube channel is the video "Mobil Accensione 2011" which documents the restarting of the sweeper after many years of disuse and has been embedded below. The "Garage curators" promise that in the future will add other content and information to both the website and the YouTube channel!
The section documenting "Historical Garage" also collects photographs and images that portray the employees engaged in work phases or immortalized in moments of conviviality. Vehicles and people with daily work in the territory, asphalting a road or repairing the heating system of ab school, have become something instantly recognizable and familiar for the citizens. A proper memory, therefore, to preserve and grow over time which also an educational function, particularly for students visiting the "Historical Garage" along with the modern city warehouses. It is an opportunity to learn how the activities of the Municipality were organized comparing them with the methods and modern equipment available today. The restoration of the vehicles, including the preparation of the site and the collection of documentation, have been made by some employees of the technical and municipal warehouses.
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The "Historical Garage Municipal Warehouses of Montecchio Maggiore" was created with the goal of preserving vehicles, equipment and tools of the most representative of those used in the last 40 years by the Services "Garbage Collection", "Water and gas", "Maintenance streets - Public illumination" and "Maintenance" of the Municipality properties. Avoiding the demolition of vehicles and other tools, preserving them protected in a suitable structure sheltered from adverse weather conditions, represents a proper recognition to men who in recent decades have used them during the course of their service as employees in the Municipality.
