WOLVERHAMPTON TROLLEYBUS FLEET No.433. BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM DUDLEY.
This picture was taken sometime in 1987. Today (6/2/ 2020) I read with interest in the text the Department for Transport to create the first town to have all electric buses through a £50m fund. This is an excellent idea as battery technology has improved greatly. One that can be recharged at regular intervals from a charging point is a great idea.
The thought of First Generation trolleybuses re-introduced in Britain today on busy roads is not practical and they could be very dangerous. One trolleybus de-wirement on a very busy road is unthinkable. It could easily cause loss of life, the driver having to step into a stream of fast moving traffic with a bamboo pole to reconnect the booms to the running wires. The worst case scenario would be when one the running wires breaks, causing severe danger and disruption to other road users. Gone are the days when a polite motorist would reverse a few feet ( I've seen this happen turning sharp corners in Wolverhampton and Walsall ) to enable the driver to gain access to the bamboo pole in the rear of the trolleybus. In their day trolleybuses were a really good mode of public transport on busy corridors, but todays roads are much too busy and dangerous for trolleybus dewirements .
First generatiion trolleybus wiring was temperamental and dewirements could occur frequently if drivers didn't adhere to speed limits going round bends, corners and frog -junctions or turned corners too widely usually when trying to make up for lost time. The speed restrictions on average, made them marginally slower than diesel motorbuses working the same routes. Trolleybuses themselves were not all that slow as on a long straight section of road that does not have frogs in the running wire, they could accelerate up to 35 miles per hour much faster than an average diesel motorbus of the 1960s. Fully laiden or unlaiden, they could accelerate much faster than any diesel motorbus or long distance luxury motorcoach or charabancs of the same period of time up to that speed. They have been known to reach a maximum speed of 40 miles per hour, but this is very rare.
Dual mode trolleybuses operating with an auxiliary diesel engine would not be environmentally correct. The best option would be modern dual mode trolleybuses with rechargeable batteries that could recharge while working under the overhead. Dedicated bus lanes and guided bus ways such as the one in Cambridge and the one between Leigh and Ellenbrook Greater Manchester are suitable. Trolleybuses could successfully and safely be used on these type of corridors. Town centres and complicated one-way systems could be served with battery power.
Arnhem in the Netherlands have a superb modern trolleybus system. With modern overhead equipment much higher speeds can be achieved going round curves and through frog junctions with a minimum risk of dewirements. From my observation of seeing utube footage of this system, there appears to be far less traffic on the roads over there where trolleybuses operate. Maybe private car ownership is much lower there or private cars are used less than in the United Kingdom as public transport is better over there.
Route 29 that operated between Walsall and Wolverhampton was a route I remembered well. When I was twelve ( in 1964) I used to go to Wolverhampton on the trolleybus from Town End Street (back of the Savoy Cinema) Walsall to go train spotting at the Low Level station. Also I had several relatives who lived on the Walsall side of the route near the town centre.
WOLVERHAMPTON TROLLEYBUS FLEET No.433. BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM DUDLEY.
This picture was taken sometime in 1987. Today (6/2/ 2020) I read with interest in the text the Department for Transport to create the first town to have all electric buses through a £50m fund. This is an excellent idea as battery technology has improved greatly. One that can be recharged at regular intervals from a charging point is a great idea.
The thought of First Generation trolleybuses re-introduced in Britain today on busy roads is not practical and they could be very dangerous. One trolleybus de-wirement on a very busy road is unthinkable. It could easily cause loss of life, the driver having to step into a stream of fast moving traffic with a bamboo pole to reconnect the booms to the running wires. The worst case scenario would be when one the running wires breaks, causing severe danger and disruption to other road users. Gone are the days when a polite motorist would reverse a few feet ( I've seen this happen turning sharp corners in Wolverhampton and Walsall ) to enable the driver to gain access to the bamboo pole in the rear of the trolleybus. In their day trolleybuses were a really good mode of public transport on busy corridors, but todays roads are much too busy and dangerous for trolleybus dewirements .
First generatiion trolleybus wiring was temperamental and dewirements could occur frequently if drivers didn't adhere to speed limits going round bends, corners and frog -junctions or turned corners too widely usually when trying to make up for lost time. The speed restrictions on average, made them marginally slower than diesel motorbuses working the same routes. Trolleybuses themselves were not all that slow as on a long straight section of road that does not have frogs in the running wire, they could accelerate up to 35 miles per hour much faster than an average diesel motorbus of the 1960s. Fully laiden or unlaiden, they could accelerate much faster than any diesel motorbus or long distance luxury motorcoach or charabancs of the same period of time up to that speed. They have been known to reach a maximum speed of 40 miles per hour, but this is very rare.
Dual mode trolleybuses operating with an auxiliary diesel engine would not be environmentally correct. The best option would be modern dual mode trolleybuses with rechargeable batteries that could recharge while working under the overhead. Dedicated bus lanes and guided bus ways such as the one in Cambridge and the one between Leigh and Ellenbrook Greater Manchester are suitable. Trolleybuses could successfully and safely be used on these type of corridors. Town centres and complicated one-way systems could be served with battery power.
Arnhem in the Netherlands have a superb modern trolleybus system. With modern overhead equipment much higher speeds can be achieved going round curves and through frog junctions with a minimum risk of dewirements. From my observation of seeing utube footage of this system, there appears to be far less traffic on the roads over there where trolleybuses operate. Maybe private car ownership is much lower there or private cars are used less than in the United Kingdom as public transport is better over there.
Route 29 that operated between Walsall and Wolverhampton was a route I remembered well. When I was twelve ( in 1964) I used to go to Wolverhampton on the trolleybus from Town End Street (back of the Savoy Cinema) Walsall to go train spotting at the Low Level station. Also I had several relatives who lived on the Walsall side of the route near the town centre.