Bernard J. Sachs, a longtime member of the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, in his recently published book, “Baltimore’s Picturesque Jerkwaters,” has performed a notable historic service in documenting the lesser-traveled streetcar lines that were components of the city’s 425-mile system.

Sachs defines “jerkwater’ car lines that were “short in length, sometimes but a few blocks long, or a lightly patronized branch of appendage of a busy trunk line.”

He writes about jerkwaters that were to be found in the Gwynns Falls Valley, Jones Falls Valley, York and Harford roads, East Baltimore, North Point Peninsula, South Baltimore and even downtown.

A story, not in the book, but a favorite of the late James A. Hartzell, Baltimore Sun artist and creator of the Oriole Bird mascot, concerns the Union Avenue Jerkwater, the No. 46, that connected Hampden to the mills in Woodberry from 1901 to 1949, and Edwin P. Young Jr., a 1940s-era Sun and Evening Sun city editor, who had a preference for gin.

The streetcar would trundle up Union Avenue, where it laid over between runs in the middle of 36th Street, near the old Cavaco’s drugstore.

When Young ran out of gin, recalled Hartzell, who had worked for the editor, he stepped out of his Union Avenue residence, flagged down the outbound car, pressed money into the motorman’s hands, who on his return run to Woodberry, delivered the precious spirit he had procured at Cavaco’s.

The line passed into local streetcar history in 1949.

fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com