It looks like a rough life being a trolley shoe. Dayton got low-floor Gillig trolley buses with auxiliary power units.

43 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: Dayton Trolley Bus”

    1. And “pavement breakers” means exactly what? Most 40′ buses likely weigh 36,000 to 40,000 depending on the load carried. 60′ buses are likely more than that. Are you insinuating that Breda buses are more damaging to pavement than are other buses from Gillig, Orion or New Flyer? If you are you need to prove it. What is a constant though is that buses do indeed contribute to roadway degradation as do big trucks. Unless you build roads that are more impervious to heavy loads this will happen. Even on part of East Pine Street that is concrete rather than asphalt you will have degradation. Just east of the spot where they restored pavement on East Pine Street west of Broadway you can see that the pavement is all broken up. Is this just from buses? It’s a guess. Do buses contribute to major street wear? Probably yes. Is one kind of bus more responsible than another? Probably no.

      1. It is a well documented fact that the Bredas were much heavier than they were supposed to be for a 60′ bus

      3. The axle loading on the Bredas was above what is normally allowed for operation on city streets. They had to get an exemption in order to operate here.

        So , yes, they were pavement breakers.

    1. Watch a light rail or railroad pantograph when there is ice on the contact wire sometime. It looks like someone’s doing arc welding up there – which in a way they are.

      1. The same thing happens with electric trolley buses. That first run in the morning after a head frost can be a real light show.

  3. I assume this must be a very early morning trip from the shops to the start of the route? I wish the buses I take could go that far without stopping at any traffic lights.

    1. It would be great if same video equipment could be mounted on a San Francisco MUNI trolleybus on one of the really steep and complicated routes.
      Would be worth it just to see those shoes go through special work as the 24 Divisadero approaches Pacific Heights.

      Too bad the industry doesn’t have a yearly “rodeo” for trolleybuses- with San Francisco and similar systems world wide as both competitors and locations. Would be great to have San Francisco host champion drivers from Brazil to Crimea!

      Bet the public would pay to watch. All that would be missing would be drivers “flopping” on the pavement, dramatically pointing to the other driver they’re accusing of dewiring them. Works for soccer!

      MD

      2. I know that NYS has a rodio & several years ago The winner there went on to win the national competition. He drives for Bee-Line in Westchester County.

  4. “Pavement-breakers.” Looks like somebody’s been reading The Seattle Times coverage of the Downtown Seattle Transit Project during the lead-up to the project in 1990 or so.

    The trouble with the Bredas has never been what they weighed, but what they are: machines purchased on the low bid and accepted in panic over completion date. Despite meeting none of our specifications. Overweight less a problem than underpowered, badly designed, and clumsily assembled.

    But worst of all, with an excellent electric power package and a body strong enough to be leaving their moldy smell on passengers’ clothes on our most important trolley routes decades after their misbegotten purchase.

    However, the most important thing about the Bredas is not their miserable past, but their warnings for transit’s present and near future in Seattle. A propulsion package untried on our grades? One way overhead on two way track? And everything else unknown and unanswered.

    Lesson from Breda 101 is: Opening Date be damned. Until those streetcars are completely perfect as specified, don’t either start service or even take delivery. As the remains of the Benson line proved over ten useless years, the First Hill Line track and structures don’t demand any rush.

    Mark Dublin

    1. I would definitely be more confident of the success of the cars if they were purchased from one of the companies that has existing cars with this type of system. Bombardier and Alstom have cars operating in Europe with this, and Bombardier designed cars are operating without overhead in China. Kawasaki says their SWIMO demonstrator car operated up to 6 miles off wire.

      Those are all companies with significant USA presence as well. They would not want to earn a bad reputation used against them on future contracts.

      1. My thoughts exactly on new streetcar fleet, Glenn. Would also advise Metro to have several miles of trolley wire and hardware in the warehouse for the first time a battery failure leaves a standing load southbound passengers stuck southbound at Swedish Hospital or Fourteenth and Jackson.

        But my point about bus rodeos is that there should definitely be a separate one every year for trolley buses. Electric buses really haven’t changed much since they were invented- I think about 80 years ago.

        Driving them is an antique skill like “handing sail” on a clipper ship: more than half of it is learning to use natural forces- in this case gravity and momentum- both to smooth out the ride, and more important, to keep moving through dead-spots due to switches.

        Enough momentum not to get stuck- which may require a push-truck to get moving. But not so much to de-wire- which under an intersection full of aerial hardware the weight of a truck- can shorten a risk-manager’s life.

        A trolley driver must be able to sense, by timing and “land-marks” like parking meters and pavement cracks- exactly where the “shoes” are. One possible good use for either a camera, or better yet, a set of mirrors aimed at the tops of the poles.

        The main reason trolley drivers like rear windows is to watch the ropes to see whether or not the shoes have followed the correct wire after clearing a switch.

        There’s a good case for requiring that a new driver’s first year of service be driven on a trolley bus. Timing, using gravity and momentum to assist in smooth acceleration and braking, constant awareness of bus position- learned on trolleys, good on diesels or hybrids for life.

        That’s why a yearly rodeo and rally on the 24 Divisadero, the 50-mile Crimean line over the mountains, and whatever is the next challenging system in the world- maybe some city in China-would be an ornament to our industry.

        As well as attracting as much TV and internet attention for a blown switch as for a wardrobe failure at half-time. “Long Live Bulgaria”! “Podyom Crimea!” And “Go …..” Okay, let’s have a naming contest.

        Mark

  5. First minute has got to be the #5; the only other bus that goes down Brown Street past the University of Dayton is the 14 and it’s not a wire bus. The 5 is a weird relic of an earlier schedule–it runs 3-4 times a day and virtually all of it’s route is well covered by more frequent buses. I don’t understand why it still exists, unless they want a reason to keep that wire up, in case they need it for some future restructure.

    1. Having grown up in Dayton, my guess is that RTA (which often struggles for funding) wants to keep the line active. Remember, ETB’s qualify for fixed-guideway funding, and RTA needs all the cash they can get.

      Still, watching this was a trip down memory lane. I remember all those places rather well.

    1. Of particular interest to the land use part of this group is the addition of 41,000 square feet of retail space, mostly by increasing the vertical footprint. The store they have in Fremont is basically still a suburban sprawl style footprint.

  7. The procurement process for Dayton has been really interesting.
    Dayton actually signed a contract with Vossloh Kiepe (who normally just builds the electric drive systems) and it turned around and signed deals with Gillig to provide unpowered BRTPlus coaches and Complete Coach Works to assemble it all together. They’re testing 2 buses with battery auxiliary power units and 2 buses with diesel auxiliary power units. They’ll purchase about 50 of whichever work better.

    That’s compared to King County Metro and SF Muni who signed a contract with bus builder New Flyer who purchased electric drive systems from Vossloh Kiepe and assembles it all together before delivery.

    This actually marks the second time Gillig has created unpowered coaches that would become trolleybuses, the first time was for King County Metro (who fitted them with refurbished electric drive systems).

    Oh and if you’re a real transit geek Google Complete Coach Works. They convert old diesel powered buses into battery electric buses.

  8. I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but I’m looking forward to being able to read the destination signs of our buses, instead of having 2/3 of the time Go Seahawks and the logo on the destination sign, and having to catch which route it is on the remaining 1/3 of the time.

    1. I completely agree. I’m really tired of exchanging usability for free promotion of a $10 billion a year monopoly (entire NFL, that is) that leaves its employees with musculoskeletal and/or brain injuries. They do not need promotion, especially not at the expense of the bus system’s usability.

      1. +1 – if the US football cartel wishes to advertise, they can
        pay up. But the destination screens should remain just that.

    2. They do it all the time now. Last summer, they said “Go Mariners!” and I think “Go Sounders” as well. But I agree. “Go Seahawks!” doesn’t tell me much about where this bus is going.

  9. Unless I missed it, I didn’t see the shoes going through overhead switches – that would have been interesting. I did see one crossover at the end as the coach turned into the bus loop.

  10. This pole-mounted video camera could possibly compensate for the new Metro trolleys’ lack of a rear window!

    BTW: On our recent post about a second DSTT, I suggested the idea that the “new” tunnel be used for bus traffic as well as light rail (with much more ample capacity than the current DSTT). My hope was to reintroduce dual-power buses, much like Dayton’s, to Seattle, but somehow I think the current fleet of hush mode-equipped hybrids would suffice.

    What do you guys think?

  11. SR, the problem with any piece of electronic equipment, especially left constantly in the open, is its propensity to fail suddenly and without warning. I’m not sure that King County Metro would be willing to pull a coach out of service if the trolley pole camera fails.

    After which will arise the question of whether a coach operator will still be subject to discipline if damage results from a dewirement resulting from the failed camera. Experience generally convinces working people to be skeptical about replacing familiar simple things like windows with anything virtual.

    In addition, the rear window serves another important purpose in city transit. It makes it possible for passengers to see what number bus is directly behind one’s own. A passenger can also signal a trailing operator that they want a connection.

    The idea of a second tunnel has not yet come anywhere near the details of either the size, the capacity, or the location. The BN tunnel runs directly under the heart of Downtown Seattle, and through soil under Jackson and south which is water with a little dirt in i.t

    One consequence could very well be that if there’s no more room underground for boring, as we did with Third Avenue, we may have to cut open the length of a downtown avenue- like we did with Pine Street.

    And there’s more than one serious question about stations. Could a station under Second share stations with the ones next to them on Third? Would public accept not? So it’s best we talk technical for awhile before we talk operations and destinations.

    Now about joint rail-bus operations. For 24 years this September, I’ve been down on Metro for its failure to operate the signal system meant to coordinate DSTT operations, to my mind out of laziness.

    And serious failure to provide the level of training the facility demands, due to indifference as to how will the Tunnel works. And both due to massive underestimation of the time it would take until rail service arrived, creating a permanent excuse for neglecting DSTT needs.

    But I personally doubt that the caliber of its rail operations will be as “light” as in the DSTT- whether the cars resemble present large streetcars or SF BART.
    But the really serious problem with buses will involve operations outside the new tunnel.

    Convention Place and International District stations both feed directly on and off freeways. Which over the Tunnel’s whole life have never yet been able to anywhere near deliver express buses to the portals. Doubt Elliott Avenue will serve better. In other words, a second tunnel will require considerable new above ground right of way, both fully reserved surface, and elevated too.

    I’ve always hated transit that exists only on schematics and Power-Point. However many miles…in a city, inches count a lot more.

    Mark

    1. The idea there is ‘no room’ for additional tunnels under downtown Seattle is rather funny. Just take a look at London or New York. If the will to build is there there is room for a tunnel.

      In one of the corridor studies there was some back of the napkin style potential alignments for a second DSTT. There has been some other work don. Over the years as well.

      True none has really gone to the level of detail needed to truly cost and pick an alignment, but a general notion of the potential issues is there.

      1. See above measurement comment about importance of inches in Seattle, Chris. 1.3 miles would probably be less than distance between two stations in London. But more critical, you’d need to know soils, water, geology, and seismic considerations before comparing.

        There may in fact be enough tunnel- holding ground between the BN tunnel and the proposed second DSTT at Seneca Street. But our present tunnel has BN locomotives five feet overhead just north of Jackson.

        We also had to pump cement into the ground- called “grouting”, before we could complete the bore between Pioneer Square and Jackson. We could indeed use either pedestrian tunnels or elevators to connect second and first line of underground stations.

        But taxpayers will definitely need to understand thoroughly the added expense. And transit will need the will of a smoking-quitter to lose its habit of cutting corners and cheaping out. “Budget” will need to become less a mandate than “avoidance of murder.”

        Mark

    2. Regarding the use of rear windows to identify following buses… in Chicago when you’re on the Brown Line or Red Line approaching Belmont or Fullerton the driver will sometimes announce if there’s an immediate follower and which line it is. We could do the same thing here… though on a few streets like 3rd Ave and 15th in the U District (mostly during peak hours) there might be too many to keep track of. If you’re going south on 15th (on the 44 or 48) and your destination is the eastside it can be helpful to know if there’s a 271 or 542 close behind that you should jump out for, or if you’re better off transferring at Montlake.

      1. 15th is precisely where people most want to know what the bus behind them is. People get on the 43, 48, or 49 because it goes sort of their direction, even though they’d prefer one of the others that goes closer. Several times I’ve noticed when waiting for a 49 in the afternoon, a 43 comes and I pass it up, a 48 comes and it won’t help at all, and then another 43 comes and another 48 and then finally a 49. That makes people get on the 43 even when they didn’t really want to, and they really want to know whether the next bus is a 49, but they’ll miss that bus if they wait to check or go out to check.

        Likewise between the 43 and 48: people going to around Madison or 15th can take either one, but often one is goes closer to their destination, yet they might take the other one because they don’t know whether their desired one will be unexpectedly delayed.

      2. I have also started taking the 43 and 49 pretty regularly between 4:30 and 6:30pm southbound, to avoid the overcrowding/traffic/stress on the 71/72/73X. Fail! on the part of the expresses. Sometimes there’s a traffic jam at Stewart Street; other times it takes 10-15 minutes to get from Convention Place to Westlake. (I usually get off at Convention Place and walk back up to Summit, but sometimes i go further in the tunnel when going elsewhere.)

      3. @Carl: I’ve actually tried to use OBA for this while on the 44 heading down 15th. You have to look at a particular stop’s screen and then figure out:

        – Which “44” is the one I’m on? The way the 44 bunches this isn’t always easy!
        – Is that “542” with the same listed arrival time just ahead of me or just behind? Has that “271” listed as just behind me actually passed me up because of a boarding delay since the last time OBA measured the bus’ position?

        It would take very precise and timely data, plus excellent presentation, to pull it off. To be sure, though, the rear window gives you a pretty limited amount of information.

        1. I don’t find the Onebusaway accuracy to be very good, I agree. It’s probably more useful if you are on the sidewalk and deciding which bus you will board. If it says that a 271 and a 540 are coming, at least they should be near each other. But I certainly often see a bus that is predicted 2 minutes behind another, come first.

      4. PS: That’s why I said properly working. With GPS accuracy, OnebusAway ought to function much better than it does. I don’t think it gets real time data, just occasional timepoints and then projections, so it quickly gets out of date.

  12. Looks like they are done excavating Roosevelt Station. Either that, or they are reconfiguring the conveyer system. Can anyone confirm?

    Now all they need to do is pour the invert, prep the north wall, and drive Brenda into the station.

    Oddly enough, STP also finished excavating the access pit for Bertha on Friday. But I still think ST will have both TBM’s into and out of the station before Bertha gets relaunched.

    1. The first TBM is ahead of schedule, and should break through into Roosevelt in ~March I think.

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