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Electric Buses (of a sort) to Return to Walsall

H

horsencart

master brummie
It has been many years since the Trolley Bus ran in Walsall, a new electric bus will from 12? December return to Walsall, the buses are known as a Hybrid it is a Electric/Diesel driven bus nothing really new in this as there were petrol/electric buses in the 1920,s? the new type of Hybrid is the next generation of buses and can be described as a milk float with ambitions, if you have ever traveled on one of the Hybrids you will know what I mean

The bus will creep up at you on electric power (battery's) while you at the bus stop, then when the bus speeds up the diesel engine will kick in till the speed drops and the electric side of the bus then takes over the general public who sit on the bus will say that the bus has broke when the speed of the bus slows and the electric side of the bus takes over and of course it aint
 
hello.i remember the trolly bus in derby.and the conductor trying to get the contact back on the wire.when the driver went off course but things have changed since them things .diesel electric buses sounds good
 
The big advantage of the hybrid vehicle is that the diesel engine is quite small, as all it does is assist the electric motor when the vehicle is above a certain speed. The old trolleybuses were all-electric, so had no emissions (exhaust) but were limited to where they could run by the overhead wires. The hybrid bus's engine is only half the size of fully diesel ones, so only half the emissions, and that only when its running as well. Eventually we will have zero emission vehicles in the majority on our roads, but all progress takes time.
The oil company shareholders will have something to say about it of course, and how will the government apply tax to sunlight if solar panels on bus roofs to recharge their batteries comes in?
 
It will be very interesting to see how this experiment works out. This type of vehicle is, I am certain, more suited to town or cityscapes that than rural routes. We shall see. I don't know whether this has been tried out elsewhere in the UK; maybe some one on the Forum might know.

I am reminded a scheme, which as far as I know, did not work out well. It was running buses,in Swindon or Reading I think, on what the ladies here would call coking oil. :biggrin:

Mention has been made of trolley buses in Walsall and Derby: let's not forget the fleet Birmingham once ran - especially on a Birmingham history Forum.
 
Reading have had a number of types of buses, starting with ones run on "green diesel" made from vegetable oils (though I'm not sure if they actually used old cooking fat to make any used there, it was from rapeseed mainly i think). They then tried on one route a fleet of specially made buses running on ethanol (alcohol as in booze to non-chemists). This was supposed to be made from the waste of sugar beet production (which is perfectly feasable but not actually being done yet) and proclaimed this on the back of the fancy new buses. However it turned out (just as certain members of the firm who happened to know the firms marketing the scheme quite well "left to persue other interests") that actually the ethanol was made from wood chips from Scandanavia imported and then made into alcohol, at vastly greater cost than the board had been tols. these were converted at vast extra cost to diesel (I think green diesel). The latest are the hybrid vehicles described above , used first on my route into town, and now being expanded. these are more expensive, but they ahve a grant from the government which makes it about the same cost as a normal bus, and they should be more economical and less polluting. I think most people like them as they are smoother. Have got the impression that, in an attempt to decrease weight and thus increase economy , some of the bodywork panels are very flimsy and damage more easily than in other buses. That may be an unfortunate impression only though.
Mike
 
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