Geoffrey wrote: <One thing about trolleybuses is that I often find it ironic that the San Souci steam trams with rails and no wires were replaced in 1937 by trolleybuses which had no rails but wires. They are almost like opposites.>

Ironic – it is, Ironic.

Over here in the west, we had new trolleybus routes which replaced a tram route, but extended the trolleybus further afield and one such extension was to where another completely different tram route was located, and then caused the cut back of that tram route (a la East Perth & later, Wembley) , whilst other tb routes completely replaced tram routes (a la Claremont {1938} & Inglewood {1958}) but extended the route by some small distance.

The TB’s were effective and immensely popular but their downfall (in the west anyway) was caused by poor design necessitating two man crewing; inflexibility – only go where the wires were strung; and the increasingly popular (with management anyhow) diesel/petrol bus which could go wherever there was a road. The media here were effusive in their praise for the tb when they first arrived, but then (later) complained of the visual pollution created by the overhead.

A strange situation really in that the perceived cost was always the infrastructure required to run a tram or trolleybus system, but never the road cost - well not in the west anyway - except where the road had to be maintained in between the rails and adjacent lines.

Road costs were never taken into account for the operation of a diesel/petrol bus by the operator.
It is the same with heavy rail – the operator has to provide the infrastructure for the operation of the train and consequently charges that to the consignee of the freight carried, and some proportion of ticket sales no doubt go toward those costs as well.

But road costs were never taken into account for the operation of a freight carrying vehicle by the operator, except what was taken from the licence fee by the government for the road upkeep.
And of course, the owner of a car doesn’t pay directly for road upkeep costs either (apparently).

I guess it is no wonder that perceived road freight costs will always be cheaper than rail (or PT) costs.

I do note however, that some country shires in WA are now lamenting the loss of rail for the transport of grain, because of the non-recoverable cost of road upkeep and maintenance required because of the damage being done to the roads by the heavy haul road freight trucks.

Bob in Perth where the situation is a tad complex to say the least.