Croydon Tram

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes. Although not as an adult. The very fact that there's been a tram revival but not trolley bus one tells you something.

[damduck-egg]

Same here, remember the poles would come off fairly often, Right pain in the arse according to my wifes much older cousin who was a conductress on them in Bournemouth and had to get them back on the wire and some times the dewirement had caused damage that tripped the supply bringing other buses to a halt and needing a repair gang. Many trolleys had a battery but it would only take them for a few hundred yards and was really for short moves in the depot . Wasn't easy on a dark windy wet night with impatient motorists revving their engines just behind you and that was in the early sixties, today you'd get an irate driver thumping the bus driver.

Modern tram pantographs don't do that, A trolley bus would still need trolley poles though they can be automated now,

Leeds is about the only UK scheme to be seriously considered and it was cancelled in Spring this year when the Government decided not to supply the finance needed above what the City could provide.

The earlier systems were usually a means of avoiding tram rail replacement in the 1930's when the power distribution system still had years of life left in it and much of the power still came from and justified the running of Town and City power stations. Diesel buses were still lethargic beasts in the 30's and had less passenger capacity. Post WW2 with the changes to electricity industry and most towns and cities now having lost control of those power stations there was no incentive to go for a second generation of Trolley buses especially as the distribution networks were now life expired and did not reach out to new housing estates which reliable diesel buses with reasonable passenger capacity could serve easier. Tees- side had the last short extension in 68 , it closed in 71.

Present generation trolleys would almost certainly have to be single deck articulated vehicles to carry the number of passengers that would exist to justify spending on a system in the first place. For various reasons diesel artics have not been popular in some of the places that had them as being run on roads that have not been altered as much as one having to be adapted to incorporate trams they can cause inconvenience to other road users. A modern trolleybus system would need a similar amount of road engineering to get the best out of it by which time you might as well go to a tram system anyway.

G.Harman

[Bob Eager]

Yes. And what makes them unsuitable in many modern scenarios is that they don't run on rails. Tramlink uses existing railway corridors, off road, and railway stations. You wouldn't fit a trolley bus in there.

[charles]

Our old trolley buses were double-deckers, too, so wouldn't go under a lot of bridges

[Bob Eager]

True, but that part wouldn't have to be the case.

You could have single decker, narrow trolley buses. They'd have to be articulated in order to make them viable. And they wouldn't be able to go very fast in a narrow corridor of road alongside a railway line (or cross railway lines at junctions very easily). You are getting very near a tram system at that point!

[NY]

Sadly cyclists almost universally undertake slow-moving or stationary traffic - and they are even given their own lane which encourages this. If there is no cycle lane, I always position myself right next to the kerb if I'm turning left to block them from doing it: straight-on cyclists on the left and cars on their right indicating to turn left are an accident in the making.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

London has recently got rid of its bendy buses. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You'd have thought it obvious that once a vehicle starts off to make a left turn, the driver will be concentrating on what is ahead, not behind or to the side. Especially at traffic lights where he'll be on the lookout for cyclists ignoring them.

[DerbyBorn]

[e-mail] (Roger Hayter) wrote in news:1mwvtx6.1ke07671muujryN% [e-mail]:

Yes - Derby until about 1967 .

[DerbyBorn]

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I would dispute that - given the need to relocate underground services and add vibration absorbing materials.

[Bob Eager]

I was sort of implying that as a disadvantage!

[bert]

Yes Newcastle early 60s. Bloody things were always coming unhooked from the power lines.

[bert]

In article , [e-mail] writes

They also had to stop at each junction and change the overhead "points"

[damduck-egg]

Yes . That was normally the conductors or conductresses job as well, done by pulling a chain on a nearby pole to change the overhead frogs. They were spring biased for the busiest route most often the straight ahead one and had to be held against the spring for the diverging one. The Cousin mentioned above tells of getting it wrong one morning , leaping off and pulling the chain forgetting that they were on a different roster than usual ,The driver took the bus ahead the poles went to the left till they dewired and in tangling with the overhead caused damage that took an hour or two to repair.

They didn't always have to stop, a busy junction with lots of buses often had persons to switch the Frogs, frequently an older member of staff who was no longer fit enough to drive or an ex serviceman who may have lost a limb in the war. Providing you could stand and had a good arm to pull the chain it was a job. Some more modern systems had powered frogs with a crude form of automation, a bus going ahead would cut power and coast ,going on the diverging route they would draw power and that would be sensed and the frogs switched . As roads got busier a bus that should have coasted being stopped by traffic just before the junction would get messed up easily.

G.Harman

[Andy Burns]

If you were on a tram [before last week's crash] and it appeared the driver was nodding off, would you

A) tap on the glass to wake him up?

B) pull the alarm?

C) video him nodding off and put it on you tube?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I don't. If a cyclist undertakes me he does it at his own risk. I always indicate, so he gets fair warning. I do not check for things where they shouldn't be.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

It's not efficient to wait for the bus/tram/whatever. My car is waiting for me 24/7.

[Nick]

Yes and both you and your car can wait in traffic.

In London trains and trams are often quicker than a car.

[Bob Eager]

And you don't have to park it when you get there.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Nobody with half a brain cell lives in the shithole of London. You pay more for less space with more noise.