Wellington trolleybus news
Brent Efford
Thursday, March 7, 2002 10:11 AM
Two quick snippets of news from the Trolleybus Capital:
1 The Wellington Regional and City Councils have decided to push ahead with
completing the Lambton Hub, and not wait for Transfund to come up with the
rest of the money. This means that the temporary trolleybus terminus shown
in the photo I attached (with difficulty) the other day will be replaced
sooner rather than later (maybe by the end of this year). Construction
should restart within days.
2 I visited my buddy Graeme Butler, the trolleybus design engineer, at the
workshops on Tuesday. His end of the new trolleybus project is making good
progress, but Designline, the bus builders, don't seem to have started work
on the prototype yet. Graeme is down at Ashburton now to give them a
hurry-up, but clearly the body prototype will not be on the road here next
month as originally planned. The body prototype will have generally existing
electrical gear in a new low-floor body. There will be a second prototype
which will be an existing Mk 2 trolleybus retrofitted with a new-generation,
largely NZ made, electronic control system and other fittings like pole
bases with pneumatic retrievers. A pair of the latter are already in the
workshops, obtained from China. Graeme has already spotted a number of
design improvements he intends to make to them. I will post a photo or two
as soon as I get time. The 30 production vehicles (if ordered) will replace
the Mk1 trolleybuses, using their motors and some chassis components, with
vehicles with new bodies and new control equipment.
PS - thanks to contributors for the Footscray map and reminiscences.
Whenever I am in Melbourne I do a round tram and train trip via Footscray.
It is interesting to see how such an "odd" tram line originated.
Cheers,
Brent Efford
TechMedia Services
Co-ordinator, Transport 2000+ NZ
PO Box 2626, Wellington 6015
New Zealand
[email protected]
Ph (04) 801 9331, Fx (04) 801 9344
Mob 025 887 387
www.techmedia.co.nz
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
1 The Wellington Regional and City Councils have decided to push ahead with
completing the Lambton Hub, and not wait for Transfund to come up with the
rest of the money. This means that the temporary trolleybus terminus shown
in the photo I attached (with difficulty) the other day will be replaced
sooner rather than later (maybe by the end of this year). Construction
should restart within days.
2 I visited my buddy Graeme Butler, the trolleybus design engineer, at the
workshops on Tuesday. His end of the new trolleybus project is making good
progress, but Designline, the bus builders, don't seem to have started work
on the prototype yet. Graeme is down at Ashburton now to give them a
hurry-up, but clearly the body prototype will not be on the road here next
month as originally planned. The body prototype will have generally existing
electrical gear in a new low-floor body. There will be a second prototype
which will be an existing Mk 2 trolleybus retrofitted with a new-generation,
largely NZ made, electronic control system and other fittings like pole
bases with pneumatic retrievers. A pair of the latter are already in the
workshops, obtained from China. Graeme has already spotted a number of
design improvements he intends to make to them. I will post a photo or two
as soon as I get time. The 30 production vehicles (if ordered) will replace
the Mk1 trolleybuses, using their motors and some chassis components, with
vehicles with new bodies and new control equipment.
PS - thanks to contributors for the Footscray map and reminiscences.
Whenever I am in Melbourne I do a round tram and train trip via Footscray.
It is interesting to see how such an "odd" tram line originated.
Cheers,
Brent Efford
TechMedia Services
Co-ordinator, Transport 2000+ NZ
PO Box 2626, Wellington 6015
New Zealand
[email protected]
Ph (04) 801 9331, Fx (04) 801 9344
Mob 025 887 387
www.techmedia.co.nz
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/