Heading across the street, this picture almost looks like it could have been taken in Seattle with those trolley wires running overhead! (Remember,
trolleys are buses, not trains.) Even the buildings in the background are more on Seattle's scale rather than Vancouver's (mid-rise with somewhere around 6 stories, rather than Vancouver's tendency towards towers in the 40-story range).
I always think it's crazy that trackless trolleys manage to keep the pantograph in contact with the wires overhead when that seems like it would be much more difficult without rails!
ReplyDeleteAs someone who regularly commutes by trolleybus, the answer is... they don't! 🙃 OK, it's not that bad, but dewiring is a pretty common thing. The main reason it works at all is that rather than the pantograph that basically all trains use these days, trolleybuses still use old-fashioned trolley poles, which are designed to sort of grab onto the wire to some extent to allow the bus to not be perfectly positioned under the wire, though it's by no means a perfect system. This is why, absent some sort of innovation that hasn't happened in the past hundred-plus years, trolleys will never be a workable solution to making buses electric.
DeleteOkay, that would make a lot more sense! On top of the trackless trolleys/trolleybuses losing their connections at times, I'd also imagine it is very expensive to string up wires all over the city compared to just running standard bus service.
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