Tram and trolleybus overhead power

[dm1]

Was watching a 'touristy' video on YouTube last night set in Zurich and noticed articulated trams and trolleybuses using the same street but wasn't looking closely enough to ascertain how they managed it.

Separate tram and trolleybus wires parallel to one another.

Fun fact: like railway and tram catenary, trolleybus wires also have stagger (diagonal zig zags in the wire in the horizontal plane), as this helps to keep the trolley poles in contact with the wire.

 

[Strathclyder]

The tram routes were extensive, but it would be stretching it to say the Trolleybus replaced them like-for-like. I have a very old GCT map showing this area A there was only 1 east-west route and ran Shielhall to Rutherglen 101, 106, 108 the rest were mainly cross river using Stockwell. Saltmarket and Kings Drive bridges. As I recall the major junctions were along Norfolk Street as the buses heading to/from the north side crossed it at right angles.

The 107 had a loop at Maitland Street (Cowcaddens) where it joined the main drag up Garscube Road, this area had much tram activity too but I cannot recall the layout!

Sorry, should've been clearer. I meant the tram routes that were replaced in whole or in part by the trolleybus routes, not the entire tram network being replaced like-for-like by the trollies. I'm also aware the trollies only outlasted the trams by about 4-and-a-half years, the network reaching it's fullest extent in 1959 before being gradually withdrawn themselves up until final closure in 1967.

 

[Buzby]

I do recall at the Transport Museum (Albert Drive and Kelvin Hall) they had a twin rear-axle trolley on display, but I don’t think it made the transfer to Riverside. I wonder where it went?

 

[Whisky Papa]

I managed a quick shot of the crossing point of the new trolleybus wiring and tram at Nádraží Veleslavín in Prague, with a pair of modernised Tatra T3 trams either side of it. When operations start, the trolleybus route will leave the bus station located off-shot to the right and having crossed the tram lines head behind the camera out to the airport. As the trams run in the central reservation, no crossing is required on the return journey, it is just a right turn into the bus station, which has been fully wired. The current 119 bus runs very frequently (every 3 to 4 minutes at times) so presumably something similar will be the case when it converts.

 

[norbitonflyer]

I've driven trolleybuses at Sandtoft there is a trigger frog with a light, to operate it you had pedal down 3 notches and pull the handbrake on, the surge will fire the frog and a yellow light will tell you that the frog has been set, it's an art to release the handbrake and pedal at the same time without shooting forward.

I saw that done on my visit to Sandtoft. (can't remember whether coast was straight on or turnout now, it was some years ago) But if it didn't work, or where it wasn't installed, the usual arrangement was for the conductor to lean out and set the frog for the desired direction, using a lever attached to the nearest standard supporting the wiring. (the frog was usually sprung to the more heavily used route, so the conductor only needed to dio this when opeatingb tghe road less travelled). Forgetting, or botching it, would lead to a dewirement, which would require the conductor to get the bamboo pole out from under the bus to coax the trolley head back onto the wires.

Was watching a 'touristy' video on YouTube last night set in Zurich and noticed articulated trams and trolleybuses using the same street but wasn't looking closely enough to ascertain how they managed it.

As I recall (and Google Street View would seem to confirm it), the trams run on reserved parts of the street and the trolleybuses mix it with other trackless traffic. See this view here outside the Hbf (Trolley wires on the right, tramlines on the left)

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