On 19/10/17 08:43,transitclassics@... [TramsDownUnder] wrote:
>

>

> The wire starts just outside the city

> edge and about a block later crosses it's only interesting

> infrastructure where it crosses tram line 3. One has to wonder why they

> didn't start it after the tram crossing!

I have video I shot just there of a bus arriving and the driver wasn't
quite lined up right. One of the poles hit the 'hat' instead of the
wire. The driver lowered the poles moved a few cm and tried again. Success!.

Only about 100m further down the road one of the poles jumped the wire.
Both auto-lowered. I presume due to not being on the wire long and
having just come from Termini, the driver got out and used the ropes to
hand place the two poles back on the wire instead of continuing on
battery to the next 'rewire' point.

I also wondered by they didn't put up a short section of wire at Termini
so buses 'laying over' could charge their batteries.

>

> An interesting operation but oddly, the area off wire (from city edge to

> Termini) is some of the most unattractive of the whole line, indeed

> termini, like most of Rome outside the absolute tourist areas is rather

> filthy and disappointing for such a supposed world class city but that's

> another story.


Apparently the wire runs right up to the edge of where the boundary is
for the 'central city', and there is some sort of city rule about
overhead wires that prevented them from putting up wires for the buses.
So the wires run right to the edge of that boundary.

Presumably any new tram track with in the central zone would have to be
'wire free' too. Most of the tram network skirts this central zone too,
tracks in the central area being long abandoned.