In message . com,
Boltar writes

I can't see battery power being useful for more than a mile or so

The new Rome trolleybuses run for over 10km on battery power.

and in hilly areas I suspect its a non starter - literally.

I haven't been to Rome since the new line opened, but in general terms
Rome (on its famous seven hills) is not as flat as most of London.

--
Paul Terry

On Feb 20, 10:33 am, wrote:
On 20 Feb, 09:39, "Kev" wrote:

On Feb 20, 8:36 am, wrote:

Assuming the electricity was generated using renewables like Wind the
pollution levels approach 0.

Nothing is zero emmisions, it still has to be manufactured, scrapped
at the end of its life, the power has to be distributed and
maintained.

Kevin

This depends on how power is produced.
It's an issue beyond the scope of this newsgroup, but as a matter of
scientific principle, all of the things you mention can be done
without producing any CO2 whatsoever.

As a matter of scientific principle perhaps that is correct but as a
matter of scientific fact zero emmissions are unobtainable. For a
start there will never be 100 % zero emmission generation and we still
come back to the question of CO2 produced during manufacture, since we
don't do it anymore it is out of our control.

kevin

On 20 Feb 2007 02:17:44 -0800, "Boltar"
wrote:

On Feb 20, 8:36 am, wrote:
While this requires a weight overhead in battery power, it makes them
flexible enough to compete with conventional diesel buses on certain
routes.

I can't see battery power being useful for more than a mile or so and
in hilly areas I suspect its a non starter - literally. The other
problem is that if an operater buys a trolleybus with a diesel
engine , you can guarantee that at some point the bean counters will
say "well hang on , this bus has an engine anyway , why are we paying
to maintain overhead wires when the bus doesn't actually need them?".

Unless battery technology advances sufficiently. See, for instance,
this
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/15/tech...biz2/index.htm.

I can't find the link but this technology was in one of the Sunday's
recently. Reality or hype? I don't know.

I am a bit concerned abotu the 'charge it in 5 minutes' claims. It
sounds like to have to pump energy into it at quite a rate.

"Boltar" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Feb 20, 8:36 am, wrote:
While this requires a weight overhead in battery power, it makes them
flexible enough to compete with conventional diesel buses on certain
routes.

I can't see battery power being useful for more than a mile or so and
in hilly areas I suspect its a non starter - literally. The other
problem is that if an operater buys a trolleybus with a diesel
engine , you can guarantee that at some point the bean counters will
say "well hang on , this bus has an engine anyway , why are we paying
to maintain overhead wires when the bus doesn't actually need them?".


IIRC (it was over 40 years ago) the Newcastle trolleybuses' diesel engines
were quite low powered, and were provided to allow the 'bus to get out of
the way if there was a problem with the wires or pickup arms, but not for
normal use...

Paul

On Feb 20, 10:42 am, wrote:
As for the gradient issue: actually electric trolleybuses have better
hill-climbing abilitities than diesels.

True , but not on battery power I suspect - ultimately you're limited
by the amount of power a battery can put out and I very much doubt
that could be more than a large diesel engine - at least not if you
want the battery to have a significant lifespan.

Diesels in cities are a lousy idea and should be phased out of London.

Agreed. A pity the short sighted morons back in the 50s didn't see it
that way. God knows what they were thinking - it can't purely have
been a cynical money saving exercise could it?

B2003

On Feb 18, 8:06 pm, Marc Brett wrote:
On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 19:41:22 +0000, stevo wrote:
London would be foolish to go for trolley busses as hydrogen power will
be round soon(ish)

Hydrogen "power" is a fraud, the sooner abandoned the better.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/15/zubrin.htm

Fuel cells on vehicles are very energy inefficient and therefore
although they give no air borne pollutants at street level (which is
clearly much better than diesel vehicles), they are environmentally
disastrous in terms of greenhouse gas production. Economically they
are also very poor as the equipment is so heavy you cannot get
anything much larger than a medium size single decker within the gross
laden weight limits. For every one passenger kilometre on a fuel cell
bus, the same energy could give you 12 passenger kilometres on a
trolley bus. This may be improved upon a little by new developments
but it is the intrinsic physics that means there will always be a very
large disparity.

On Feb 18, 10:32 am, wrote:
1) Good resources on the environmental advantages of electric buses
with many working examples from around the world:-

http://citytransport.info/Electbus.htm

2) A modern trolley bus (coach) at work in Rome, demonstrating 'off-
the-wire' operation:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSxTniqh_EQ

3) Link to an online petition:-

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Trolleybuses/

Also the www.tbus.org.uk web site and the Trolleybus for West London
www.tfwl.org.uk sites.

On Feb 18, 11:56 am, "sweek" wrote:
I think they're simply too ugly, and would hate to see so many wires
in London. I know that this is obviously true for trams, too, unless
we go for the still buggy system that Bordeaux has at the moment. But
at least the vehicles look a lot nicer then, and trams have a higher
"status" compared to buses.

Wires do not have to be as conspicuous as they often are in tram
schemes (huge steel 'I' girders and tensioned wires with large
weights). Trolleybus wiring can be quite light weight and is not
tensioned. In urban areas it can be suspended from brackets on
buildings. In really sensitive areas, you can of course dispense with
wiring and run on batteries or super capacitors or other auxiliary
power. Clearly where there are wires they will be able to be seen if
you look but what is better a view with wires or an atmosphere laden
with pollutants which we (now) know make people (especially children
and the elderly) suffer with breathing problems and die prematurely?
We can make the excuse of non-knowledge for the widespread electric to
diesel conversions of the 50's through to 1972 in the UK but that
excuse no longer holds water.

On 21 Feb, 12:41, wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSxTniqh_EQ

3) Link to an online petition:-

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Trolleybuses/

Also thewww.tbus.org.ukweb site and the Trolleybus for West Londonwww.tfwl.org.uksites.

Interesting site, particularly the criticisms of the proposed West
London Tram system.
In theory a great idea, which might take lots of car drivers off the
A40.
In practice the Uxbridge Road in Southall, Hanwell and Ealing Broadway
are too narrow, so a tramway would knock out all other forms of
transport.
Also, it's obviously vastly more expensive to lay a tram track.

Someone ought to do a similar proposal to revive a trolleybus system
along the Edgware Road (from Edgware to Marble Arch)
Dead straight (because the Romans built it) and flat for 10 miles.

Nobody in their right mind would use it to commute into London anymore
and there is a serious bottleneck before the Cricklewood Flyover in an
area in dire need of urban regeneration.
And how about a branch-line to Brent Cross?

A trolleybus system would take pressure of the A41 and the Northern
Line in the rush hours.
What could be better than that?

P.S. the nostalgia photos of 60's trolleybuses were great. I vote for
double deckers.

But a Trolleybus wouldn't solve any traffic problems, and wouldn't be
any faster than the buses there are now along Uxbridge Road - which I
thought was the main incentive for the tram. I use the route all the
time and traffic is really bad.In the end, trams are narrower than
buses so a right of way tramway would be easier to implement.

And I've been looking through those pictures and can't see any example
at all, of a trolleybus and its wiring that does not look ugly. I also
haven't seen much modern implementation of these things. If any at
all, really. Are there any cities that have recently constructed a
trolleybus network? The only example I can find is the Silver Line in
Boston, which all Bostonians I've talked with seem to hate.

Every now and then I seem to run into a few enthousiasts about the
whole thing, but I haven't seen any serious planning for a system.
Wikipedia doesn't help much, either.

And I still think they're just very ugly. Pollution is a problem
obviously, but I hope we can find a nicer way around it than this.