London Banter - View Single Post - Arn't all new buses in London supposed to be hybrids?

[email protected] · February 23rd 17, 06:06 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
() wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 13:31:55 +0000, Neil Williams
wrote:

On 2017-02-23 12:11:31 +0000, Mark said:

Central London is constantly dug up and rebuilt with many bus route
diversions. A trolleybus wouldn't be able to divert along an unwired
road.

Many of them have a small generator or battery for precisely that
purpose.

Wasn't there one London garage that depended on the buses reaching a
wired street by using their battery along an unwired one?

First of all, London trolleybuses didn't use garages. They used depots. They
were treated as rail less trams rather than buses. I'm sure no depots lacked
wired access but I have a feeling

They're also a nuisance when the pickup arm gets disconnected from the
wires.

It's not hard to put it back on using the ropes at the back.

It is quite possible now to have automated systems that can position
the Trolleys onto the wires without a member of crew having to pull on
a rope or use a long insulated pole . That's provided that the
trolleys or the overhead hasn't been damaged due to the dewirement.
It would almost be a requirement now,when London had Trolleybuses last
time around they had conductors who could extract the bamboo pole from
underneath and rewire them. Even then they had problems with traffic
understandably pulling up close to the rear of the bus that did not
allow enough room for the bamboo to be withdrawn .Some systems carried
the pole on the side because of this.
In todays busy traffic having a driver leave his seat to wield a long
pole around or haul on a rope would soon have some impatient passenger
moaning like hell on twitter because he is late or a another road user
would get road rage and lump the driver one.

Which trolleybus systems have automated systems which restore booms after
dewirements? I've never heard of that and can't imagine how it might work
thinking of dewirements I observed in London and later in Brazil.

My recollections of the London system was that insulated poles were hung on
traction standards all over the network for use where dewirements (and
planned removals at lay-by points) were regular. They were much more often
used than those under the trolleybuses (I remember the holder tubes being
empty as often as not).

Ropes as used by trolley retrievers were very rare on British systems
, swinging ropes get easily caught on the top rear corners of a double
decker a problem that did affect the single deckers abroad who use the
rope system as std.

That would only be an issue if the booms were too short or positioned too
far forward on the roof.

--
Colin Rosenstiel