Perhaps a New Game

It's called, spot the wires. Sure are ruining this nature scene for everyone! This is Turin, Italy.

Why the Catenary Talk?

After overriding the Mayor's veto, URS is going to look at how to bring the streetcar to the city. One of the issues, how to power them, will be fun to consider. Though the question asked in the article seems wrong:

"Do you want to be one of the last streetcars with a catenary system, or the first with a new system - that's the dilemma," Nadolny said.

What streetcar actually needs catenary? Simple trolley wire will do. Some interurban lines could run up to 90mph on trolleywire. I don't see why we have to always over-engineer these things. If you want to ugly things up, go ahead and build catenary. Perhaps that is the goal since the idea of wireless streetcars is all the rage.

Back to Steem?

The latest in the wire issue related to streetcars, trams, and LRVs.

The Overhead Wire is Done

No not me or the blog, rather the wires that bring electricity to streetcars and light rail. Yonah brings our attention to an MSNBC article in which Bombardier unveils their new technology advancement.

The innovative principle of the PRIMOVE system is rooted in the principle of inductive power transfer, a technology used in cleanrooms in the computer chip and automotive industries. With Bombardier's introduction of PRIMOVE, inductive power transfer comes to rail vehicles for the first time.

Apparently they have been testing in Germany since 2003 and the system apparently can work in all weather, unlike the Alstom APS system which reportedly has problems with ice and snow. Now we wait for commercial installation and testing under real life conditions. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Change in Overhead Wire Comments Policy

Hey all, its not a big change but I got 100 spam comments last night and I think my laptop got taken over by a virus. I'll probably have to wipe it clean and start over but for now any comment on a post older than 5 days will be moderated. That still means recent hot topics will show up right when you post. I don't want to moderate really, but this is the best way I could under blogger without reverting to open access that seemed to not let certain folks post before. Hope this works for everyone.

100,000!

We just crashed the 100,000 visit mark on the blog. Thanks to everyone who has come by over the last two years.

Sunday Photo Dump: San Francisco

So I was out and about today around the N Judah and took a few photos. I also took a few on the 4th of July that I didn't get to post. I really like capturing what's going on around me and I always have my camera in my bag in case something inspires me to capture it. In any event, some of these are transit related but it's mostly about great cities, which are an essential part of the transit-oriented lifestyle.

This is a mural on some plywood on my street. This house has been under construction for about 2 years and the neighbors got tired of it. They told me that when the house is done, they are going to use these as their back fence. It's kind of sad because no one will get to see them. I kind of enjoy seeing something new on them each day I come home from work. It's a very cool evolution.


Over at the East Portal of the Muni Sunset Tunnel, made famous by numerous cars that drive in there thinking its a throughway even though its clearly for rail cars, purple flowers grow between the tracks.



Fixes for the entrance for the Market Street Subway for the N and J tracks are much needed. I hear they are coming soon. But here's the condition now. This is why speeds of 5 mph are used in this section of track.


This was a look at the Bay towards the Golden Gate bridge from Fillmore street on the 4th of July. It's quite a regular occurrence to have this much fog on the 4th. It's bad because it blocks out the fireworks show.

Here's golden gate park on the 4th. San Francisco fog style.
I've been seeing a lot more of these as well...

And while this might look ugly to some, it's music to my lungs. I would take visual pollution over air pollution any day. Usually you don't even notice, but it hurts more to breathe diesel exhaust than it does to see these.

Epic Fail

I think LOLstuff is pretty funny. This one probably wasn't funny when it happened but its quite transit oriented and a bit humorous now. There's a similar picture of a railroad fail where the train fell out of the second story of a station. Ah I think I found it.

But the photo below kind of got me thinking on how diesel buses are the work horse of transit yet they are still susceptible to all the price hikes and gas issues that hit cars. I wish they weren't, but they don't all have alternatives to diesel yet. Perhaps more trolley buses would help save agencies money. Just a thought.


see more pwn and owned pictures

Overhead Wires, Pantographs, & Trolleypoles

Warning, rant approaching:

Ben Wear from the Austin American Statesman wrote an article on his blog today on the proposal for an Austin starter line by Roma design. In the article he muffed the overhead wire, not my blog, but the technology details.

Light rail, as opposed to the commuter rail opening late this year or early next year, is generally powered by electricity and has a system or overhead wires that connect to devices on the top of the cars called “catenaries.”

Sigh. The devices on the top of the vehicles can be two things, Pantograph or a Trolley Pole, just like my nom de plume. Interesting history point, the pantograph was actually invented by none other than the east bay Key System, now AC Transit, which had it's 50th tear down anniversary last week. The catenary is actually the support wire for the electric wire. From wikipedia:

To achieve good high speed current collection, it is necessary to keep the contact wire geometry within defined limits throughout the length of the overhead line. It is usually achieved by supporting the contact wire from above by means of a second wire, known variously as the messenger wire (US & Europe) or catenary (UK & Canada). This wire is allowed to follow the natural path of a wire strung between two points, which is known as a catenary curve, thus the use of catenary to describe this wire or sometimes the whole system. This wire is attached to the contact wire at regular intervals by vertical wires known as droppers or drop wires. In this way the contact wire is effectively supported at numerous points.

The messenger wire is supported regularly at structures, either by means of a pulley, link, or clamp. The whole system is then subjected to a mechanical tension. The messenger wire is usually pulled slightly to the left and right by successive supports, so that the contact wire slides from side to side(stagger) on the pantograph as the vehicle moves along (if it did not then it would tend to wear a groove in the pantograph's carbon insert). Such a system, with a single supporting wire, is known as simple equipment.

Sometimes we also call simple equipment a trolley wire which is much more aesthetically pleasing and should be used in downtown settings to minimize the visual pollution. I know this is a bit picky, but if you're going to continuously pick on the local transit agency on details, at least get yours straight.

Rant off.

**** The Tram

The Urban Planning Overlord has some info on free speech and transit at its best.

Washington DC and Wires

Apparently when they ran the streetcars in Washington DC laws had been written that would require that no overhead wires in the District West of the Anacostia River be used to power anything. While this law keeps out unsightly wires it also discourages bringing back the streetcars that once ran down the streets of Washington. The pilot Anacostia Streetcar project on an abandoned right of way is not subject to these restrictions however anything West of this new project is affected.

The only possible fix is the third rail technology that has been used in Bordeaux France. This system, pioneered and owned by Alstom is rumored to not be available and the word on the street is that it won't be available in the United States any time soon. According to Werner Uttinger, the safety certification process in the United States is too much to overcome to bring this technology to the United States so for now it seems that DC will have to invent its own power system or keep dreaming.

UPDATE: In the comments Christof has this to say...

The "no overhead wire" law predated DC's streetcars. As a result, the city used conduit streetcars, with the electrical supply buried in a slot in the street (resembling a cable car slot). As proved by more than 70 years of operation, it was a workable system, but expensive to build and labor-intensive to maintain. Pictures here. If you ever wondered what streamliner cable cars might have looked like: Click Here

Apparently also, since it was so expensive to have the underground conduit, there were pits on the outskirts of town to switch to overhead wires. This is a similar situation to Bordeaux where the Alstom trainsets change to overhead wires outside the historic downtown. Thanks for the Links Christof.

Welcome to The Overhead Wire

Well here goes nothing. Today is the first day of the Overhead Wire. This blog is going to be all about transit and transit oriented development. Sometimes irreverent but mostly commentary on the news of the day...which often will be ripped to shreds because someone was asking for it.

Today's News...The Houston Chronicle Reports that Metro gave in to Culbertson's demands. Now light rail to the Galleria is screwed. I'll write more about this when it's not 2 am but the fact remains the same. The folks in Houston are scared of chicken little. Don't let someone who doesn't know anything about transit tell you where to build. I hope that line gets put back into shape but don't expect anything any time soon with the leadership letting it go the way its been going. The road warriors need to wake up and get a clue.