The End Of Trackless Trolleys in Philadelphia?

queenlnr8 wrote:Philly would be wise to 'net' the downtown area and make virtually all CC local busses (the ones that do not leave the CC area) TT.

I can't tell you how many times I have been shopping or wandering the downtown with friends to have our conversations drowned out or out dinning disrupted by a noisy bus rolling by. Not to mention the health and enviromental impact of busses.

Nothing is worse for an outdoor area than a bus.

Won't the federal gov't fund most of a conversion is SEPTA elected to do so? Wouldn't there be grants and tax breaks for such a conversion?

Yes, Philadelphia is a "non attainment area" - basically anywhere you had MTBE /Oxygenated gasoline, you're a prime candidate for some form of pollution mitigation.

What I'm VERY optimistic about is that we now are seeing gas/electric hybrids that have no-low emissions, but "rubber tire mobility".
We might see trackless trollies that have the best of both worlds-

A) clean and quite - run without exhaust like electric trollies,
B) no rails - yes, like everyone else, I love rails, but they're a pain when they're on a narrow city street. Wide street - Lancaster, Woodland they're great. Narrow Street like Germantown Ave, you've got problems.

But, if you don't have to stay on the rails and you're more manouverable than a trolley, and you don't have to stay under the wires, and you're more manouverable than a trackless trolley, and can run free for a few blocks through the magic of gasoline and regenerative braking- you're getting close to the perfect urban transit vehicle-

I say close because it would be so nice to have a way to get dedicated transitways into Center City which usually means rail like the existing Subway Surface Trolley, or perhaps the Erie "upstairs" of the Broad Street Line; could a Subway Surface service using R100 cars be integrated with the Broad Street Express or Broad Ridge Spur?

Perhaps someday we'll have trackless trolleys using the Reading Viaduct and Pennsylvania Ave tunnel as transit ways, but for now, it looks like the main benefit is the low emission and mobility that you'd get from taking power from overhead trolley wires most of the time, but having the freedom to venture out from under the wires when you need to.

Hal

Tommy Rails wrote:What is a trackless trolley? I visit Philly often and the only trolley I've seen is the 69th street trolley and as far as I know it runs on rails. Where does this trackless trolley run?

The demise of the Philadelphia Streetcar system is of comparatively recent vintage. As late as 1969, Philadelphia ran more streetcars than any other city in the U.S., and in North America only Toronto had more streetcars. This was true in spite of the wholesale bustitution of the syetem in the 1950's by NCL. SEPTA has managed to accomplish what NCL couldn't.
In reality, trackless trolleys pre-date the developement of the motor ( gasoline and diesel) bus. It was felt that the trackless had an advantage over the streetcar in that it could steer around obstructions and pull to the curb to pick up passengers. Development of this vehicle was aborted somewhat by the rapid development of the internal engine powered motor bus, otherwise we might have seen even more trackless trolley routes than existed in their heyday.

In reality, trackless trolleys pre-date the developement of the motor (gasoline and diesel) bus

New York City was using gasoline-powered double-deck buses back in the second decade of the 20th Century. The postcard shown below was postmarked 1917.

The gasoline powered motor bus actually was derived from the jitney, which was nothing more than an altered touring automobile. Later, bus bodies were placed on truck chassis-- all of this did occur during the teens. However, these vehicles were often highly unreliable, so the alternative for those companies that wanted to replace streetcars ( often on rather lightly travelled lines) became the trackless trolley. This didn't last very long, as by the mid 1920's, the motor bus had been improved to the point that in the thinking of that time, there was little advantage to further expansion of a trackless trolley system.

I've recently been driving home via Frankford Ave between Knights Rd and Academy Rd. Alas there's little easy way to get from Cherry Hill NJ to Ft Washington on public transit, PATCO-SEPTA works, but I don't always want to spend 2 and a half hours getting home. Anyway, I've recently driven under the 66 wires for a significant portion of my trip home, and I have to express how sick it makes me to see D40LF after D40LF grind away down the street with their deafening roar. SEPTA cannot act fast enough to either put the old AMGs back out there, or order new ETBs, possibly based on a New Flyer *40LF body with Kiepe electronics. I fear that at this point the latter may be the better option, now that the riders have been treated to the low floors, they may be unwilling to surrender those nice new buses for what they no doubt percieve as a step down in vehicles. Also new ETBs will keep the system from SEPTA's meddling for at least 20 years, whereas old AMGs working the route will be litterally at the end of their lives in a mere 2-5 years, and need to be replaced anyway. It disgusts me to think of all the infrastructure in this city going to waste simply because the management is too short sighted to realize the eventual savings and increases in service that could be had through widespread revival of our temporarily abandoned infrastructure.

As for wiring the whole city, I think in a place like Philadelphia it only makes sense to go with electric transit. Probably 80% of the routes CTD operates are local routes within the city, the kind of routes that never get over 40mph for their entire operation, and which the bus spends a lot of time in first or second gear, frequently shifting between the two. This is the kind of environment in which a diesel engine is the worst solution possible, the fuel consumption, Hydrocarbon and CO2 is highest at low speed and high RPMs. And to make the situation worse, the fuel just consumed to accelerate the bus will be wasted when the bus has to brake in traffic. Go stand on Market street between 20th and 15th on any weekday and you'll see this in action. Now Hybrids solve some of these problems, they regenerate some power in braking, and use electricity to take off, but they're also relatively higher maitenance than a straight diesel bus. The real way to get lower maitenance and lower fuel consumption, while simulataniously going to a system which pollutes less is to wire a route. Electric motors are far more efficient than diesel engines, they're lower maitenance, and should provide better acceleration in the city than a diesel engine ever could.

I should point out that the subway-surface lines are *not* trackless.

They have tracks.

Well, for one, we're sadly going to have a hard time getting more tracklesses when they cost close to $1 million a piece. The MBTA's new Neoplan/Skoda TT's, while very, very nice, are well over $900,000 a piece. With a conventional 40-footer between $300 and $400K, that's a tough stumbling block right there.

Having had one ride on our new ones, I sure hope that Philly can get some too -- from somewhere. The strides that have been made from the TT's of 20-30 years ago are remarkable.

Ok, so the TTs are upwards of 3x the cost of a diesel bus. The question is, though, what savings is there in maintenance? How often does each need to be serviced, and how much does one spend to replace parts in each? Also, is there a savings in operatinal costs -- does it cost less for SEPTA to pull down electricity than it does to buy diesel fuel?

I can't speak much to the servicing costs, but for fuel and operating costs, there's as always economy in scale. That is, the relative costs of operation, electrical distribution and servicing drop as they add more lines. Sure each TT costs nearly $1M, but the other benefits certainly defray that partially.

A full capital output (costing, granted, upwards of $10B) could replace almost every transit line in the city with its previous streetcar incarnation or a trackless trolley, allowing for fewer diesel fumes, significantly less noise and a cleaner city. Can they do this conversion? Of course not. But it would be nice to see an occasional line go electric allowing the current 5 TT lines economy of scale. I'd especially be interested to see a line go electric that connects the two disjoint trackless divisions (Frankford and Southern) allowing equipment moves and the like. (route 57? it would be interesting to see the route multiplexes with standard trolleys on Erie and Girard)

octr202 wrote:Well, for one, we're sadly going to have a hard time getting more tracklesses when they cost close to $1 million a piece.

The MBTA's new Neoplan/Skoda TT's, while very, very nice, are well over $900,000 a piece.

With a conventional 40-footer between $300 and $400K, that's a tough stumbling block right there.

Having had one ride on our new ones, I sure hope that Philly can get some too -- from somewhere. The strides that have been made from the TT's of 20-30 years ago are remarkable.

Very interesting about price.

I've got a very off the wall question- I've recenty read about the JFK Airport "AirTrain" and it was described as running with a Linear Induction Motor.

Linear Induction Motor (LIM) is based on the idea that instead of using a circle of magnets flipping polarity to spin a steel wheel to move on a steel track, use a line of magnets flipping polarity right on the rail to "caterpillar" along the rails.

So, what I'm curious about is this-
If a Trackless Trolley is that much more expensive than a regular diesel bus, would it be cost effective to manufacture an add on system?

I'm thinking of something I've heard of for the JFK "AirTrain", a linear induction motor, to add to regular busses so they run as trackless trolleys?
Is it possible to take a cheap diesel bus, mount a snowplow/towing rig on the front, use the rig to connect the bus to the new style motor and have the electric motor up front pulling the bus along?
If the LIM is solid state and has no moving parts, then it might be possible to have it configured as a something that's raised and lowered into place by standard snowplow hydraulics. Technical specifications I saw from the JFK AirTrain list the powerconver as weighting a half ton, and being about 3' by 3' by 4'. If the motors/traction units are of comparable size, that's not that much different in size and weight from a large snowplow blade.
I see Philly garbage trucks with plows attached, so it's at least concievable that a SEPTA bus could work with something similar.

So, what kind of difficulty is there to having a regular bus riding on tires but being pulled along by a new technology motor?

Hal

Hal wrote:
Linear Induction Motor (LIM) is based on the idea that instead of using a circle of magnets flipping polarity to spin a steel wheel to move on a steel track, use a line of magnets flipping polarity right on the rail to "caterpillar" along the rails.


So, what kind of difficulty is there to having a regular bus riding on tires but being pulled along by a new technology motor?

Unless I'm very much mistaken about how LIM works, you'd need to put a line of magnets down the center of the street for this to work. This would give the bus much less flexibility side-to-side than a standard bus or even a TT, and might even be unsafe for other vehicles to use the same ROW. Considering that a TT can vary a lane to either side of the wire using flexible poles (based on what I saw in San Francisco in December), the LIM bus would require a very wide strip of magnets (much more than is necessary) in order to be able to reach additional lanes, or the 'snowplow' would need to stay in the lane while the bus slid over - obstructing or being obstructed by traffic. This strikes me as being entirely infeasible and possibly more expensive than the price differential between a TT and a standard bus.

reldnahkram wrote:

Hal wrote: Linear Induction Motor (LIM) is based on the idea that instead of using a circle of magnets flipping polarity to spin a steel wheel to move on a steel track, use a line of magnets flipping polarity right on the rail to "caterpillar" along the rails.

Unless I'm very much mistaken about how LIM works, you'd need to put a line of magnets down the center of the street for this to work.

Well, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong - but part of my interest was my (perhaps incorrect) expectation that the "new and improved" LIM technology would be based on a fushion of MRI technology and compuer technology- basically you create a pattern of small magnetized areas in normal steel, rather than a set of permanant magnets-

Basically, switching to a computer anaology, I thought a LIM motor is a comparable to a giant set of hard disk "read write heads", you go down the rail and "format" the rail with rows of alternating magnetized regions - just like formatting a computer hard drive or a cassette tape.

Once you've "written" the magnetic pattern on the rail, it IS highly magnetized, but at a much smaller scale, so you don't have bulk magnetic effects like people's jewlery being clamped to the rail like a MRI machine.

reldnahkram wrote: This would give the bus much less flexibility side-to-side than a standard bus or even a TT, and might even be unsafe for other vehicles to use the same ROW.

Well, again, that depends on the type of rail being used-
- if a LIM track requires large bulk fields it wouldn't work.
- if a LIM could use standard trolley track, and run with a pair of
"track reading heads" that fit in rail grooves it might work fine.


But, either way, it is true, that a LIM pulling a bus along trolley tracks would really have manouverability comparable to a trolley- with a small amout of flexibility, but you'd really want to have the bus reducing friction by riding on steel wheels anyhow.

But, considering that there are "kneeling busses" where the front end drops down several inches, isn't there a way those hydraulics could drop down a set of steel wheels - at least upfront to put the steering and 1/2 the vehicle weight on rails?

reldnahkram wrote: Considering that a TT can vary a lane to either side of the wire using flexible poles (based on what I saw in San Francisco in December), the LIM bus would require a very wide strip of magnets (much more than is necessary) in order to be able to reach additional lanes, or the 'snowplow' would need to stay in the lane while the bus slid over - obstructing or being obstructed by traffic.

Well, the basis of the idea is that if you've got a diesel or hybrid bus,
you can power down the LIM sled, lift it up and drive around the obstacle
then return to the tracks again. Not the fastest manouver, but faster than calling a tow truck to clear the trolley line.


Hal

One thing, however, that I neglected to mention, in defense of TT's, is the much greater life expectancy. A diesel bus will last 10-12 years or so (well, that's what they're supposed to last -- our local transit provider up here has been getting close to 20 out of some, but I don't recommend that), while TT's have the potnetial to last much longer. The MBTA's TT's that are being retired are from 1976, and while beat up, are doing much better than diesel buses of their age -- they could probably outlast some diesels that are as much as 10 years younger, although fortunately the new fleet is showing up. So, you may have to pay 3x the cost for one, but the vehicle will last 2-3 times longer than a diesel -- so at least there's eventually close to a wash on the capital side.

I have no figures to back this up, but given the reduced amount of machinery onboard (no engine, transmission) I'd have to think that TT's will see a small maintenance savings in the long run.

Now, whatever maintenance savings there is in the vehicles themselves will probably be eaten up by the cost of maintaining the overhead. For the MBTA, the biggest cost there is labor -- the T keeps a line crew on duty Monday-Saturday when its TT's run, solely for fixing wire problems that occur on three routes. Perhaps, with the additional streetcar network, SEPTA can realize an advantage in this department and have crews handle both trolley and TT routes (I would assume this is already the case?).

That then brings us to the last key cost factor -- construction of new overhead, to create more TT routes. A larger route network would have the potential to reduce vehicle capital cost, as design and engineering work on new vehicles could be spread over a much larger fleet, but I would guess the cost of new overhead would not be less than the savings on vehicle purchases.

Of course, often the most powerful arguments are the political ones. Some neighborhoods will want TT's, others will fight them. Cities and transit authorities will weigh in too. For us up here, its clear that the MBTA, from a financial perspective, would prefer to dieselize (or CNG-ize) its three remaining routes, in order to close a very small garage, and eliminate a small, non-compatible fleet, but the cities/towns of Cambridge, Belmont, and Watertown have refused to allow the MBTA to eliminate their TT's. At the same time, expansion is all but impossible, as the city of Boston is almost totally opposed to stringing new wire over any of its streets, so no expansion of the network is possible on any of the high volume routes that cross the Charles River. Thus, without a powerful and/or (often municipal) champion, the TT routes will struggle as orphans in the bus system. To bring this back locally to Philly, the long term survival of the trackless system will no doubt require the City of Philadelphia to hold them in the same regard as they have the 15, and force SEPTA to maintain/restore the service.

Hi. I just noticed that the Trackless Trolley thread was re-opened. Thanks! Just a note about the Boston TTs. I have heard the MBTA will keep 10-15 of the 1976 Flyers after the 28 new ones are in service for several years, just in case.. As for the cost factor, yes new trackless trolleys are expensive, but looking at the big picture is imporant. In 1976, the MBTA paid $70,000 for each of the 50 Flyers they bought, of which more than 40 are still fully operational. They longevity makes them worth the initial investment. In fact, if it wasnt for the A.D.A of 1990, they would have most likely just rebuilt the Flyer fleet rather than buy new replacement low floor Trolleys. The noisiest old Flyer trackless (and there are a few, though most are still quiet) is still much quieter than the newest CNG bus! Expansion is not likely. Like someone else wrote, if it was up to the MBTA they would have been gone along time ago - they really don't care about the environment. Surrounding towns that rejected trackless trolley expansion years ago, when expansion would actually have been a reality, will be kicking themselves now, because the new CNG buses the MBTA has purchased (due to explosion issues) will not be allowed through the Harvard Square tunnel which connects to the Subway, meaning those towns will always have diesel buses. So, as we ride new state of the art clean environmentally friendly trackless trolleys, those towns will have to stay with diesel buses.

In another railroad forum, someone stated that in June SEPTA was deciding whether or not to budget for new Trackless Trolleys in 2006. Has anyone heard anything about that? I visit Philly a lot, actually thinking of moving down here, and would love to buy a house near the #66 if they keep the commitment to trackless trolleys. At least SEPTA has rebuilt the EL - the MBTA tore down the Washington Street EL in 1987 and replaced it with a diesel bus. The residents have been fighting ever since about it.

Hi. I just ran across a July 15, 2004 press release from Arlen Specter's office. "Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference announced today that the Dept. of Transportation, through the Federal Transit Administation, has provided $990,029 to SEPTA for the engineering, design, and acquisition of two trackless trolleys. The press release goes on to say Trackless Trolleys are a great alternative to buses... and are vital to the growth and quality of life in Philadelphia." The plan is it appears to replace the current fleet with 50 new ones. With Federal support and funding, it looks like the trackless trolleys will stay. With the problems restoring the #15 Trolley route.. it doesn't seem SEPTA will restore trolleys to 23 & 56... maybe the 56 & 23 could be converted to trackless trolleys as a compromise, and a way to expand the system.