Foxton96
Wellington Volvo No. 264 at the Lambton Interchange 16/8/2003
Stagecoach Wellington Volvo B58 No. 264 captured standing at the Lambton Interchange bus hub, no longer a trolleybus but a test bed vehicle to test components for the 300 series Designline trolleybuses which began appearing on the Wellington scene in 2003, of which Stagecoach engineer, Graeme Butler, played a major roll, but who sadly passed away in November 2005.
Graeme Butler, a long-time trolleybus (and train and tram) fanatic, will be remembered as the person who did the technical work to ensure that Wellington's next generation of Designline-bodied trolleybuses would work and be a credit to the type.
Without Graeme in the back room using his unique specialist knowledge to solve the technical problems in a low cost way, the renewal of the Wellington system would have been that much harder.
No. 264 was scrapped in June 2007 and ended its service life as a test bed for electrics for 300 series Designline trolleybuses which saw its seats removed; CoF expired 08/2005.
DEVELOPING WELLINGTON'S NEW TROLLEY FLEET
Wellington's smart new fleet of 3-axle trolleybuses is the outcome of decades of political controversy, ownership changes, environmental pressure and a lot of 'Kiwi ingenuity' to stay within the boundaries of financial feasibility
The origins of the project to design and build a new fleet of trolleybuses for Wellington belongs not in the 21st century but back in the 1970S, the 'classic' era of the first generation of trolleybuses on the Wellington system.
The story really starts with Graeme Butler, a mature student. and trolleybus enthusiast, studying mechanical engineering at Canterbury University. In the mid-1970s Graeme worked as a shiftman for the Wellington City Transport Department (WCT) during the university holidays, and was frequently tasked with rescuing various members of the original fleet whose dewirements had caused significant damage to the overhead wiring.
That this was a common occurrence in those days was hardly surprising - the home-made trolley poles were heavy steel boiler tubing. The high inertial mass ensured that coming off the wires at any speed delivered a substantial blow to the overhead which often proved catastrophic.
Dismayed by the poor reputation which his beloved electric buses were accumulating, Graeme returned to his studies determined to find a solution. The answer can be seen on every trolleybus now running in Wellington: lightweight and flexible poles of yellow glass fibre-reinforced plastic extruded on to a thin-walled aluminum tube. The Butler pole.
Having developed four prototype poles, Graeme supplied them to WCT for trials in 1978, in the expectation that a grateful management, after any inevitable debugging, would adopt the invention and speedily put an end to a major bugbear of the electric bus system.
No such luck! What Graeme rapidly found out. and mirrored the experience of others of us who became involved in advocating for electric buses in those days, was that WCT management wanted to be rid of the trolleys and wanted nothing to do with any improvements that would make electric traction look better in the eyes of the public and councillors. Graeme and his plastic poles were 'ordered off the property', the poles to languish in the basement of his Hataitai home for 23 years.
Meanwhile the fortuitous timing of the 1979 oil shock and the efforts of some key councillors saw the trolley fleet renewed for a second generation (against management's urgings and with many initial difficulties) with the Volvos in the early 1980S, and survive the market-oriented public transport reforms and privatization in the early 90's.
INTO THE THIRD GENERATION
Fast forward to the 21st century. By 2001 the replacement of the, by then, ageing Volvo trolleybus fleet was under consideration by the company - Stagecoach - which had bought the bus operation off the Wellington City Council in 1992. The company's attitude was quite different to the old WCT management: We wanted to retain trolleys in Wellington. We wanted them to be equivalent to current diesels in customer amenity ... we wanted to introduce improvements to address public perception of trolley reliability and traffic issues. according to Stagecoach's Engineering Manager, Allan Cannell.
Although it was accepted that retaining trolleybuses would involve a somewhat. higher expenditure than converting to diesels, there were limits! There was no way that the huge cost of off-the-shelf overseas-made trolleys - probably at least $lm each - could be contemplated in addition to the necessary renewal of overhead and power supply equipment.
At the same time, NZ bus manufacturer Designline had come up with a hybrid electric city bus (which is now operating in Christchurch and Auckland) and a full trolleybus version of it looked like a feasible development. It was apparent that the high-floor bodywork and the original Brown Boveri (BBC) control equipment were obsolete, but other com ponents of the Volvos - notably the traction motors, front and rear axles and certain items of heavy electricaI equipment - could be salvaged and refurbished for another tour of duty.
However, although local builders could design and build the bodies (and Designline, then based in Ashburton, was eventually selected) and put the trolleybuses together within New Zealand budget limitations, and many essential parts could be recycled from the old fleet, the engineering expertise required was in short supply.
Another challenge was that the case for the extra funding required for the trolleybus renewaI had to be accepted by the Greater Wellington Regional Council and promoted to Land Transport NZ (as it was in the mid- 2000~) - and this needed more than "trust us -we know what we are doing". It needed a working example of a new design of low-floor trolleybus.
Allan Cannell wanted a hands-on development engineer with a passion for trolleybuses and a dedication to finding low-cost localised solutions. Fortunately he read a copy of Graeme Butler's engineering report on the poles, found Graeme in the Wellington phone directory. and in early 2001 invited him to return to the Kilbirnie workshops from which he had been excluded 23 years before.
DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
A detailed list of the technical problems which had to be overcome is too long for this article. Major considerations were the obsolescence of the late-1970s control and auxiliary equipment in the Volvos and the very high cost of new components obtained off the shelf from European suppliers.
Two examples were: (a) trolley pole bases incorporating pneumatic retrievers - considered essential in a modern design - and (b) the very expensive small DC motors traditionally used for trolleybus compressors, pumps and fans. The low-cost solutions were (a) getting cheap trolleybases from China and retrofitting modifications locally, and (b) fitting a DC-AC inverter and using cheap 3-phase AC motors for the auxiliaries.
Initial work on new electronic controls involved local company Precision Technology (Pretech). Grundmann Electronics assisted with the development of earth leakage and pole retriever systems. The retriever system involved developing an electronic system for lowering the poles in the event of a dewirement. Sensors in the rope reels at the back of the trolleybus - where conventional spring-loaded retrievers would be in older trolleybuses - signal to a processor the sudden movement caused by a dewirement, which in turn triggers admission of compressed air into the cylinder on the pole base, quickly lowering the pole below wire level.
During the development period, Volvo 264 was fitted out as a test vehicle and made many trips testing various devices and fine-tuning software and settings.
Meanwhile Designline was getting on with designing a chassis and body combination which was simultaneously in line with modern requirements, particularly having a low-floor entrance and exit and yet able to accommodate the old traction motor and axles. The first prototype, 301, was delivered in March 2003 and remains a bit of an oddball, insofar as it was built to prove the body design only and uses BBC traction equipment transferred without much alteration from the Volvos.
A visit to Brazil by Graeme Butler in September 2001, primarily to buy Fratesch i model railway equipment for which he was the NZ agent, enabled him to also visit Electra, the manufacturer of the DC-AC inverters being considered for auxiliary power.
It turned out that Electra made equipment for all types of electric buses - battery and hybrid, as well as trolley - and could offer a chopper control system to suit a series/ shunt motor which would enable engine braking and reversing without using expensive contractors. Control system development was taken over by Electra. Two further z-axle vehicles, 302 and 303, were ordered from Designline to try out the Electra equipment.
While development was proceeding, and the 2-axle prototypes were being constructed, it was realised that they would not completely "address public perception of trolley reliability and traffic issues", due to continuing dependence on the overhead wires and their vulnerability to power failures. Some form of autonomous traction - a small diesel generator or a bank of batteries - was required. However, the extra axle weight for vehicles which were already right at the limit of the NZ regulations prevented autonomous traction being fitted to the 2-axle fleet. Instead, design of a 3-axle vehicle commenced even before 302 and 303 were delivered.
It was fortunate for the new trolley project that Graeme Butler had the passion and contributed so much towards getting it established. Tragically, he was not to see the completion of it. He died of cancer in November 2005.
However, the work continued. Expanding the concept to a 3-axle configuration achieved a small increase in seated passenger capacity, from 39 to 45 seats, but enabled a significant increase in open floor area in the low-floor section, improving disabled access, standee capacity and passenger circulation. Two different seating layouts were trialed and the one shown in the drawing adopted. Only the middle axle is driven, the rearmost being an unpowered tag axle to share the weight. (In New Zealand's only other three-axle trolleys, in Christchurch 1931 - 56, both rear axles were driven.)
Autonomous traction was achieved with the fitting of banks of lead acid batteries on the roof. hidden behind fairings. After some teething troubles, the battery traction capability has performed better than expected. Maximum range is at least 5 km at up to 45 km/h and battery power can be used up the steepest hills on the system in short bursts.
The use of battery power to avoid obstructions is now routine, and hopefully public perceptions of trolleybus unreliability will begin to fade. However, the batteries are used only for emergencies and not for scheduled diversions from the wires, such as short workings, because frequent charge/discharge cycling would shorten battery life to an uneconomic extent.
APPROVAL, ORDERING AND DELIVERY
Before the production of the full 3-axle fleet of 58 could commence, funding from Land Transport NZ (now NZTA) for the project had to be assured.This was in itself a drawn-out process, and final Sign-off didn't happen until after a lot of agitation by trolleybus supporters and negotiations involving the Regional Council. The trolleybus contract was finally signed in mid-2oo7.
The first 3-axle trolleys, 331 and 332, were delivered in November 2007 and officially launched at a ceremony the following month. The production of the remainder of the fleet proceeded, with deliveries and commissioning from February 2008 until 388 was formally delivered to Go Wellington (as the Wellington city Stagecoach operation had become following its sale to Infratil subsidiary NZ Bus in November 2005) in September 2009.
Although some remedial work on the rear axles and battery banks was required before full availability was achieved, the Wellington trolleybus vehicle replacement project is now complete. However, trolley services still do not run during weekends and holidays or late evening; renegotiation of some contracts and the completion of overhead wiring renewals is required before that can be achieved. - Tramway Topics No. 242
In light of the abandonment of Wellington trolleybuses on 31/10/2017, this all now seems to have been a wasted exercise.
Wellington Volvo No. 264 at the Lambton Interchange 16/8/2003
Stagecoach Wellington Volvo B58 No. 264 captured standing at the Lambton Interchange bus hub, no longer a trolleybus but a test bed vehicle to test components for the 300 series Designline trolleybuses which began appearing on the Wellington scene in 2003, of which Stagecoach engineer, Graeme Butler, played a major roll, but who sadly passed away in November 2005.
Graeme Butler, a long-time trolleybus (and train and tram) fanatic, will be remembered as the person who did the technical work to ensure that Wellington's next generation of Designline-bodied trolleybuses would work and be a credit to the type.
Without Graeme in the back room using his unique specialist knowledge to solve the technical problems in a low cost way, the renewal of the Wellington system would have been that much harder.
No. 264 was scrapped in June 2007 and ended its service life as a test bed for electrics for 300 series Designline trolleybuses which saw its seats removed; CoF expired 08/2005.
DEVELOPING WELLINGTON'S NEW TROLLEY FLEET
Wellington's smart new fleet of 3-axle trolleybuses is the outcome of decades of political controversy, ownership changes, environmental pressure and a lot of 'Kiwi ingenuity' to stay within the boundaries of financial feasibility
The origins of the project to design and build a new fleet of trolleybuses for Wellington belongs not in the 21st century but back in the 1970S, the 'classic' era of the first generation of trolleybuses on the Wellington system.
The story really starts with Graeme Butler, a mature student. and trolleybus enthusiast, studying mechanical engineering at Canterbury University. In the mid-1970s Graeme worked as a shiftman for the Wellington City Transport Department (WCT) during the university holidays, and was frequently tasked with rescuing various members of the original fleet whose dewirements had caused significant damage to the overhead wiring.
That this was a common occurrence in those days was hardly surprising - the home-made trolley poles were heavy steel boiler tubing. The high inertial mass ensured that coming off the wires at any speed delivered a substantial blow to the overhead which often proved catastrophic.
Dismayed by the poor reputation which his beloved electric buses were accumulating, Graeme returned to his studies determined to find a solution. The answer can be seen on every trolleybus now running in Wellington: lightweight and flexible poles of yellow glass fibre-reinforced plastic extruded on to a thin-walled aluminum tube. The Butler pole.
Having developed four prototype poles, Graeme supplied them to WCT for trials in 1978, in the expectation that a grateful management, after any inevitable debugging, would adopt the invention and speedily put an end to a major bugbear of the electric bus system.
No such luck! What Graeme rapidly found out. and mirrored the experience of others of us who became involved in advocating for electric buses in those days, was that WCT management wanted to be rid of the trolleys and wanted nothing to do with any improvements that would make electric traction look better in the eyes of the public and councillors. Graeme and his plastic poles were 'ordered off the property', the poles to languish in the basement of his Hataitai home for 23 years.
Meanwhile the fortuitous timing of the 1979 oil shock and the efforts of some key councillors saw the trolley fleet renewed for a second generation (against management's urgings and with many initial difficulties) with the Volvos in the early 1980S, and survive the market-oriented public transport reforms and privatization in the early 90's.
INTO THE THIRD GENERATION
Fast forward to the 21st century. By 2001 the replacement of the, by then, ageing Volvo trolleybus fleet was under consideration by the company - Stagecoach - which had bought the bus operation off the Wellington City Council in 1992. The company's attitude was quite different to the old WCT management: We wanted to retain trolleys in Wellington. We wanted them to be equivalent to current diesels in customer amenity ... we wanted to introduce improvements to address public perception of trolley reliability and traffic issues. according to Stagecoach's Engineering Manager, Allan Cannell.
Although it was accepted that retaining trolleybuses would involve a somewhat. higher expenditure than converting to diesels, there were limits! There was no way that the huge cost of off-the-shelf overseas-made trolleys - probably at least $lm each - could be contemplated in addition to the necessary renewal of overhead and power supply equipment.
At the same time, NZ bus manufacturer Designline had come up with a hybrid electric city bus (which is now operating in Christchurch and Auckland) and a full trolleybus version of it looked like a feasible development. It was apparent that the high-floor bodywork and the original Brown Boveri (BBC) control equipment were obsolete, but other com ponents of the Volvos - notably the traction motors, front and rear axles and certain items of heavy electricaI equipment - could be salvaged and refurbished for another tour of duty.
However, although local builders could design and build the bodies (and Designline, then based in Ashburton, was eventually selected) and put the trolleybuses together within New Zealand budget limitations, and many essential parts could be recycled from the old fleet, the engineering expertise required was in short supply.
Another challenge was that the case for the extra funding required for the trolleybus renewaI had to be accepted by the Greater Wellington Regional Council and promoted to Land Transport NZ (as it was in the mid- 2000~) - and this needed more than "trust us -we know what we are doing". It needed a working example of a new design of low-floor trolleybus.
Allan Cannell wanted a hands-on development engineer with a passion for trolleybuses and a dedication to finding low-cost localised solutions. Fortunately he read a copy of Graeme Butler's engineering report on the poles, found Graeme in the Wellington phone directory. and in early 2001 invited him to return to the Kilbirnie workshops from which he had been excluded 23 years before.
DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
A detailed list of the technical problems which had to be overcome is too long for this article. Major considerations were the obsolescence of the late-1970s control and auxiliary equipment in the Volvos and the very high cost of new components obtained off the shelf from European suppliers.
Two examples were: (a) trolley pole bases incorporating pneumatic retrievers - considered essential in a modern design - and (b) the very expensive small DC motors traditionally used for trolleybus compressors, pumps and fans. The low-cost solutions were (a) getting cheap trolleybases from China and retrofitting modifications locally, and (b) fitting a DC-AC inverter and using cheap 3-phase AC motors for the auxiliaries.
Initial work on new electronic controls involved local company Precision Technology (Pretech). Grundmann Electronics assisted with the development of earth leakage and pole retriever systems. The retriever system involved developing an electronic system for lowering the poles in the event of a dewirement. Sensors in the rope reels at the back of the trolleybus - where conventional spring-loaded retrievers would be in older trolleybuses - signal to a processor the sudden movement caused by a dewirement, which in turn triggers admission of compressed air into the cylinder on the pole base, quickly lowering the pole below wire level.
During the development period, Volvo 264 was fitted out as a test vehicle and made many trips testing various devices and fine-tuning software and settings.
Meanwhile Designline was getting on with designing a chassis and body combination which was simultaneously in line with modern requirements, particularly having a low-floor entrance and exit and yet able to accommodate the old traction motor and axles. The first prototype, 301, was delivered in March 2003 and remains a bit of an oddball, insofar as it was built to prove the body design only and uses BBC traction equipment transferred without much alteration from the Volvos.
A visit to Brazil by Graeme Butler in September 2001, primarily to buy Fratesch i model railway equipment for which he was the NZ agent, enabled him to also visit Electra, the manufacturer of the DC-AC inverters being considered for auxiliary power.
It turned out that Electra made equipment for all types of electric buses - battery and hybrid, as well as trolley - and could offer a chopper control system to suit a series/ shunt motor which would enable engine braking and reversing without using expensive contractors. Control system development was taken over by Electra. Two further z-axle vehicles, 302 and 303, were ordered from Designline to try out the Electra equipment.
While development was proceeding, and the 2-axle prototypes were being constructed, it was realised that they would not completely "address public perception of trolley reliability and traffic issues", due to continuing dependence on the overhead wires and their vulnerability to power failures. Some form of autonomous traction - a small diesel generator or a bank of batteries - was required. However, the extra axle weight for vehicles which were already right at the limit of the NZ regulations prevented autonomous traction being fitted to the 2-axle fleet. Instead, design of a 3-axle vehicle commenced even before 302 and 303 were delivered.
It was fortunate for the new trolley project that Graeme Butler had the passion and contributed so much towards getting it established. Tragically, he was not to see the completion of it. He died of cancer in November 2005.
However, the work continued. Expanding the concept to a 3-axle configuration achieved a small increase in seated passenger capacity, from 39 to 45 seats, but enabled a significant increase in open floor area in the low-floor section, improving disabled access, standee capacity and passenger circulation. Two different seating layouts were trialed and the one shown in the drawing adopted. Only the middle axle is driven, the rearmost being an unpowered tag axle to share the weight. (In New Zealand's only other three-axle trolleys, in Christchurch 1931 - 56, both rear axles were driven.)
Autonomous traction was achieved with the fitting of banks of lead acid batteries on the roof. hidden behind fairings. After some teething troubles, the battery traction capability has performed better than expected. Maximum range is at least 5 km at up to 45 km/h and battery power can be used up the steepest hills on the system in short bursts.
The use of battery power to avoid obstructions is now routine, and hopefully public perceptions of trolleybus unreliability will begin to fade. However, the batteries are used only for emergencies and not for scheduled diversions from the wires, such as short workings, because frequent charge/discharge cycling would shorten battery life to an uneconomic extent.
APPROVAL, ORDERING AND DELIVERY
Before the production of the full 3-axle fleet of 58 could commence, funding from Land Transport NZ (now NZTA) for the project had to be assured.This was in itself a drawn-out process, and final Sign-off didn't happen until after a lot of agitation by trolleybus supporters and negotiations involving the Regional Council. The trolleybus contract was finally signed in mid-2oo7.
The first 3-axle trolleys, 331 and 332, were delivered in November 2007 and officially launched at a ceremony the following month. The production of the remainder of the fleet proceeded, with deliveries and commissioning from February 2008 until 388 was formally delivered to Go Wellington (as the Wellington city Stagecoach operation had become following its sale to Infratil subsidiary NZ Bus in November 2005) in September 2009.
Although some remedial work on the rear axles and battery banks was required before full availability was achieved, the Wellington trolleybus vehicle replacement project is now complete. However, trolley services still do not run during weekends and holidays or late evening; renegotiation of some contracts and the completion of overhead wiring renewals is required before that can be achieved. - Tramway Topics No. 242
In light of the abandonment of Wellington trolleybuses on 31/10/2017, this all now seems to have been a wasted exercise.