trams were cool ...

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Jim GM4DHJ ... formulated the question :

Not that cool, my bikes front wheel kept dropping into the tracks. I lost count of the number of times I ended up at the terminus, stuck in the track lol

[Custos Custodum]

Except when they caught fire. I can remember a couple of occasions when the clippie had to dash up the nearest close for a bucket of water to put it out. (Presumably it wasn't an electrical fire.) We travelled often on the No. 9 between our home in Yoker and my Gran's in Sandyford. I remember the trolley buses too, but I think they were more of a city centre thing.

[Bob Eager]

I remember using trolley buses in Brighton. They worked very well, and actually replaced the trams in the 1930s.

They did actually run out of the town quite a long way. They were far better at some of the steep and long hills in Brighton.

Their demise was hastened (around 1960) by the need for more routes, and the cost of new infrastructure. Also, they were run by just one of the three bus companies; they weren't in direct competition but there was some overlap.

[Marland]

I can just remember them from childhood holidays with rellies in sussex, they were different to the London ones I was used to as they were smaller with only four wheels rather than 6.

I found in later .years that they were operated by two operators, Brighton Corporation had the most but Brighton Hove and District had a small number of vehicles they could use on the system. It would have been Southdown that would not have had any.

GH

[harry]

They seem to be coming back. I don't know why they don't bring trolley buses back & save the expense of track. Total silence too. Also no need to keep track clear.

[Brian Gaff]

Most of the original ones like that one I rode on as a kid in Leeds were really bone shakers too, and smelt of burned carbon brushes and cooking resistors when going up hill. As for the tracks, they were trip hazards and may well still be. The thing is that back then people did not really perceive them as dangerous, but nowadays they can have issues since people have not grown up with them and they are being fitted back in many places. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Yes trolley busses used overhead two wire pick ups and needed to be manually moved using a long pole if they had to change route. I think it was maintaining the overhead infrastructure that eventually killed the idea from most places. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I also reckon it might have been hard to design an open top trolley bus! Overgrowing foliage was a serious problem on the more rural London routes as well as losses along the cable. Brian

[Marland]

Not really, Bournemouth managed to convert two of theirs for the Summer tourist trade which the wifes much older and recently deceased cousin used to work on as a conductress.

I appreciate you cannot see this photo of the one that remains at a museum.

They cut away most of the top deck roof but left a small section that resembles a four leg table to support the trolley booms.

GH

[Broadback]

Driver my Fanny Barnet motor bike through Sheffield, it got stuck in the tram lines. As the was a tram bearing down on me all I could do was lean over until the bike fell. All the passengers came to have a good look at me. As as result the tram lent alarmingly towards me, I honest thought it would topple over on me. Of course it did not, however it frightened the life out of me!

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff has brought this to us :

Brought up in Leeds, but I never really got to use the Leeds trams. We were not on a tram route and my parents always had their own transport. By the time I was working and needed to make my own way in life, the trams had long gone.

[newshound]

I remember the end of them in London in the late 50's / early 60's so was quite surprised to find modern ones in Geneva in 1970 (iirc some of them were bendy). The only real tram I rode on was the Mumbles Railway, I was very sorry to see that go.

[Andrew]

In Cardiff, they had electric trolley buses and they were great until the overhead pantograph slipped off the power cable, usually at a busy junction.

Each bus had a long bamboo? pole with a hook on the end that was stored under the ground floor, so it didn't take long to reconnect the pickup.

Sadly they were all scrapped in the 1960's and the infrastructure removed, in the name of progress.

The worst modern-day trip hazards are those town centres where councils have installed block paving and other ornate surfaces including on the speed humps that buses have to traverse. These inevitably break up as the buses impose some sort of lateral and horizontal pushing action which soon destroys the road surface.

And the 'EU friendly' knobbly surfaces at the edge of platforms and dropped kerbs are generally hated by older people who have lost much of the 'padding' from the bottom of their feet.

Andrew

[nightjar]

The overhead cables are expensive to maintain and make the routes inflexible. A broken down trolley bus or road works can close a route down.

[DerbyBorn]

Marland [e-mail]> wrote in news:gqab26F9gt4U1 @mid.individual.net:

Why did some need the twin rear axles - thet can't have been very heavy.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Might be for better traction..

[Marland]

It wasn?t just weight, the finer details as to why would take too long to find but the regulations in the earlier part of the 20th century for buses required any over a certain length to have twin rear axles. London and a couple of other places had some motor buses with the same arrangement but most places still used smaller ones . The regs were changed post WW2 so the relatively small number of Trolleybuses that exceeded the previous limit and were an entirely post war design could be constructed as 4 wheelers. By then though most systems were still using older vehicles or later batches based on them so the six wheeler trolley bus remained common till the systems were dismantled.

GH

[DerbyBorn]

Marland [e-mail]> wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Many thanks.

[harry]

The ones with a single axle have double wheels. The three axle ones had more seating room and more head room, there were longitudinal seats over the wheels.