On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 14:21:38 +0100, in uk.transport.buses "Alan J.
Flavell" wrote:

|On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Neil Williams wrote:
|
| On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 00:02:06 +0100, Alan J. Flavell wrote:
|
| Even the tired old things that I remember from school days in
| Wolverhampton provided a fine service (occasional dewirements
| excepted). Journey times were increased by a considerable factor when
| they were replaced by motor buses.
|
| The motor buses *of the day*.
|
|Sure. What else would it be fair to compare them with?
|
| Today, acceleration is much faster, and emissions much lower.
|
|Recent trolleybuses are also much better than those old 1950's models
|that I dimly remember. I can't help suspecting that some of those
|folks who are so anti trolleybuses haven't travelled on a recent one,
|and are comparing modern diesel buses with their memories of old
|trolleybuses.

I occasionally drive trolleybuses for the Black Country Museum and
they still out perform the buses I drive for work.


--
Pete Baggett
My Web Page:-
www.wulfrunian.net
(Trolleybus page www.under2wires.co.uk)

In article ,
(Boltar) wrote:

"Alan J. Flavell" wrote in message
. gla.ac.uk...
On Tue, 6 Apr 2004, Boltar wrote:

Indeed. Trolleybusses have the disadvantages of trams and busses
but the advantages of neither.

Untrue. They have some of the advantages and some of the
disadvantages of both.

Like busses they have a high rolling resistance, can only carry a
limited amount of people and will get stuck in traffic jams on ordinary
roads. Like trams they're limited to the routes of the wires. They're
only saving grace is being electricaly powered. Other than that I see no
advantage at all.

An advantage of both trams and trolleybuses over diesel buses that this
thread seems to have overlooked is that diesel engines are heavy
reciprocating machines. Therefore they tend to shake vehicles to bits,
shortening the life of diesel vehicles compared to electric vehicles.

A diesel engine also represents a much larger deadweight, especially in
these days of power electronics allowing lightweight three phase AC
motors. That's quite a few extra passengers on its own.

There are exceptions to this. Due to the Rolls Royce maintenance standards
in the first half of their lives, Routemasters have lasted longer than
their trolleybus predecessors by some margin. But in general electric rail
vehicles are good for a service life of 40 years while few buses pass half
that lifetime in service.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Dominic) wrote:

Many fleets of CNG (and also LPG) buses are in operation worldwide,
particularly the US, but I don't think there's any in this country?
Sarfampton. Slow. Top heavy. Can hardly get up Lancers Hill. Run
out of gas halfway through the day.

Hmmm. Sounds like CNG buses work about at well as Brunel's atmospheric
railway down in Devon did.

Cambridge has two on a free city centre shuttle. No problems with hills
here! One has been withdrawn to provide spares for the other but that is
still more off the road than on.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

"Pete Baggett" wrote in message
...


I occasionally drive trolleybuses for the Black Country Museum and
they still out perform the buses I drive for work.


Which buses are they?

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 23:18:47 +0100, in uk.transport.buses "David B"
wrote:

|
|"Pete Baggett" wrote in message
.. .
|
|
| I occasionally drive trolleybuses for the Black Country Museum and
| they still out perform the buses I drive for work.
|
|
|Which buses are they?
|

Optare Deltas, Optare Solos, Transbus Enviro 300s and a handful of Mk
1 Metrobuses. The Trolleybuses are Sunbeams the two fast ones dating
from 1955 and 1960.
--
Pete Baggett
My Web Page:-
www.wulfrunian.net
(Trolleybus page www.under2wires.co.uk)

On Sat, 10 Apr 2004, Pete Baggett wrote:

The Trolleybuses are Sunbeams the two fast ones dating
from 1955 and 1960.

Interesting to compare with (sorry about their clumsy URLs):

http://www.tpg.ch/Internet+TPG/Franc...SSIEMENS36.htm

Described as "Mégatrolleybus articulé" (57 seats plus 122 standing;
24m long overall, it says). OK, so TPG possess a grand total of 1 of
these beasts; I've no idea which route it might be found on, I've
never seen it in service myself (but have frequently used the number
10 trolleybus to/from Geneva airport). They appear to have several
dozen trolleybuses of a more conventional (bendy-bus) length, judging
from their list.

Overview of all their vehicles is at

http://www.tpg.ch/Internet+TPG/Franc...cVehicules.htm