Cincinnati Streetcar

When was the last time you have heard of a 'hybrid' diesel-electric streetcar, and they still have on-board generation supplying only on-board loads, in an urban eviroment where vehicles and stopping and starting quite frequently and traveling much closer together than, say, commercial aeroplanes, and remember that rechargable batteries either take longer the charge than fuel tanks take to refill, or add substatially to peak power demand, swapping batteries is the only solution. Also, batteries aren't indefinitely rechargabe, they get replaced after a certain number of duty cycles, toxic waste is produced duing remanufacture and disposal, and the energy needed to manufature and dispose batteries is not substatially less than what the batteries output over mamxium number of duty cycles. Most trolleybus abandonmanents were long before 'hyrbrid' busses were ever commercialised.

Whoa there, let's leave a little breathing room in your post!

I'm not clear what your post has to do with Cincinnati. Yes, trolley buses are efficient, we know. They also have most of the fixed guideway limitations of a railroad (difficult to pass one trolley bus with another!) without as high a potential service density, and using consumable motor products like tires and gear oil anyway.

So - how is that Cincinnati streetcar project progressing? Let's get back to that.

Myrtone wrote:When was the last time you have heard of a 'hybrid' diesel-electric streetcar

You mean like these? http://connectedcities.eu/downloads/sho ... kassel.pdf

I saw an article in the latest T&UT magazine, and saw two photos of old streetcar track, uncovered, and still appeared to be in good condition, Cincy has also been critisied for cloisng would be trourist attractions, and so this raises a question, have any old Cincy streetcars, particularly PCCs passed (directly) into preservation and if so, why are there no plans for any heritage lines in the city? Wouldn't it be best to first open a heritage line or two and use that as the basis for the modern streetcar? At least one town in Spain has opened a hertiage tramway which has been or will be used as the basis for a new system.

Apparently canceling it would be more expensive, or at least a wash. So bring on the Cincinnati streetcar.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/12/tr ... incinnati/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"We’re going to have a streetcar,” Mayor John Cranley announced at a press conference yesterday, just a little more than a month after he made a declaration that the streetcar project would be scrapped in favor of funding other city services. Supporters of both sides in the streetcar debate made public statements saying that it was time for the city to move past the debate and accept the City Council’s vote.

What is the advantage of a Diesel powered trolley over a Diesel powered bus?

Your question's singular, so I'll offer only one of the advantages: steel wheel on steel rail potentially is more fuel efficient than rubber tire on street paving.

If you had said what ARE the advantageS I'd add a few more, like :greater ability to have larger vehicles; run in trains without necessarily needing more operators; generally longer equipment lifespan.

And since you asked only for advantages I don't need to list any of the disadvantages of rail vs rubber tire.

[OT] what is the difference in cost between catenary infrastructure vs. equiping trolleys with big batteries? How about little batteries for gaps vs. raising/undercutting bridges? How about CNG which is ~~1/2 the cost of diesel (or was 6 mo ago).

I checked on The Cincinnati Streetcar's home page and I couldn't find anything on when its builders expect to start service. I had to check Cincinnati Streetcar - Wikipedia for that. It's apparently still some time in 2016.

Patrick Boylan wrote:It would be far simpler to use standard single overhead wire and use the tracks for the electric current's return, and put up an extra wire wherever the future trolleybus shares the route.

Problem is that pantographs are incompadible with trolleybus wiring.

Also, why does the over-the-Rhine loop need bidirectional rolling stock? There will be no dead end termini.

I suspect it's easier and cheaper to procure double-ended rolling stock.

No unidirectional rolling stock is cheaper, as it only needs one cab and full set of controls per vehicle and usually half as many doors.

He said cheaper "to procure," not "to make." If it has to be made specially, it's going to be more expensive than something that's already in production.

One-sided doors restrict you to all-sides or all-islands for any expansion anyway. Almost no one makes single-ended streetcar stock any more, I believe.

Plenty of major builders most notably Skoda, do still make unidirectional rolling stock. And who needs island platforms on an essentially street based system? Most street based systems use only side platforms, this is generally the case on legacy systems. On narrower roads, platforms are necessarily on the nearside, and even on wider roads, staggered side-island platforms take up less (lateral) space than centre-island platforms. Note that a centre island platform has to be nearly twice as wide as each side platform for sufficient space to be available on the platform. If say both halves of a stop are best located either on the entry or exist sides of an intersection, then staggered side-island platforms are the most space efficient option.