| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Time to reconsider the west london tram scheme | |
| Posted by: | Chris Veasey | |
| Date/Time: | 08/08/10 16:53:00 |
| Modern trolleybuses have high capacity auxiliary battery powr units enabling them to run miles off the wired route if necessary. So no, they're not forced to 'only go where the cables are', and diversions are no problem. And unlike trams, they can and do steer effortlessly round obstructions such as badly parked, broken-down or crashed vehicles, or utility excavations or other roadworks, while still picking up power from the wires - as I pointed out earlier on this thread!. I don't know what colour the fuel is that London buses use, but it's still diesel fuel, still emits fumes, and the engines still emit noise and cause severe vibrations, particularly when idling at stops or in traffic queues - with trolleybuses there'd be none of that. Trams can indeed be very jerky - the new Nottingham ones judder terribly when going round sharp curves, even at very low speed. Trolleybuses continued to run in some UK cities into the late 1960s and in some cases the early 1970s, the last operator being Bradford which only reluctantly scrapped its troleybus network because, being the last operator, they couldn't get spare parts. But in any case as alrady pointed out, modern trolleybus systems - of which there's about as many worldwide as tram systems - are far advanced from those old-fashioned UK trolley systems of half a century ago. What on earth (apart from simple uninformed prejudice) makes you imagine 'they wouldn't be able to cope with London'? |