Why Does This Tiny Rust Belt City Have Trolleybuses?
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- Опубліковано 4 лис 2024
- Most cities got rid of their trolleybuses in the postwar era. Dayton, Ohio never got the memo. But why???
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Classy Whale - at-least-weekly misadventures with trains and transit!
As a born and raised Daytonian. Trolleybuses, aren't just part of our public transit scene. They're part of our history. They're part of all of us.
I personally love trolleybuses. They are more flexible than rail, but somewhat less flexible than regular buses. They don't emit any emissions where they drive, they're pretty quiet and they can be run just about anywhere that you can drive a vehicle.
IMHO, the loss of efficiency over a street car is more than made up for in terms of flexibility and the way that they integrate more naturally with other traffic.
Worth mentioning that because they electrified their streetcar service in 1888, that means Dayton has had an electric transit service continuously since 1888 with the trolleybuses being the current manifestation, so they've had an electric transit service LONGER than ANY other city in the US! Quite the achievement for a city like Dayton! Trolleybuses are a great solution for bus electrification for several reasons. For hilly routes like in Seattle and San Francisco, trolleybuses are better than motorbuses as electric motors provide much higher static torque at start-up, an advantage for climbing steep hills. No battery means lower weight and lower cost, plus less resource waste! I'm amenable to BEV busses as if they're part of a greater trolleybus system, they can be deployed to areas where running wires isn't feasible and can connect back to the grid once they return to the wires. Trolleybuses are especially great where electricity is abundant, cheap, and renewable, such as hydroelectric. Systems in Seattle and Vancouver in Canada draw hydroelectric power from the Columbia River and other Pacific river systems! And compared to trams, they're cheaper, there's easier training as the potential operator pool for all buses is larger than trams, they're quieter, and not to mention easier traffic avoidance!
The most interesting trolleybus system of all-time has to be Kabul's former trolleybus system! It began operations in February 1979, nearly a year after the Saur Revolution led to the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, and ceased operations in 1992, so it basically only existed during the communist period. It was built by the Czechoslovak company Elektrizace železnic Praha (or Electrification of railways Prague) and initially ran with 25 Škoda 9TrH23 trolleybuses (eventually expanding to 86 vehicles by 1988, of which 80 were in operation) between Pamir Cinema in downtown Kabul to Silo Road (Kote Sangi) in western Kabul, via Kabul Zoo, Karte Char and Kabul University. The Afghans further expanded it, split the line into three routes, and the system ended up with a length of 12.5 km. It was extremely popular due to its low fares and carried about 21 million passengers per year! However, its overhead line and electric contact network was reportedly in bad condition by the late 1980s with poor maintenance. Following the outbreak of civil war, the last trolleybus came to a halt in late 1992. The copper overhead wires were subsequently looted and sold to scrap dealers.
damn, can't have shit in kabul. *proceeds to wires your trollybus*
San Francisco was talking a couple years back of replacing half the trolley buses with BEBs to meet state climate and electrification requirements which was complete insanity. I understand they resolved it and aren't talking about replacing them but would encourage trolley supporters to keep an eye on SF especially as Potrero Yard is rebuilt that they don't strip out items related to trolley operation as an excuse to switch to battery buses.
Its really a reminder that a century ago Dayton was similar to Silicoln Valley today - a major hub of technological innovation. Those days though are long past...
@@neilworms2 The presence of an Air Force Base was one factor contributing Customers to use the system.
The idea that Digital devices will be the future of Man, does inspire some realistic criticism.
We do need to face the fact that economic forces may not allow the USA to afford to drive Cars as much as we have since 1967.
Major Economic Change seems to be coming.
Dayton’s advocates were needed in Boston in 2022.
I was gonna say I hope Cambridge feels the shame of Dayton being smarter than them
@@jamesroberts3485 The political hacks who run the MBTA were just following the Biden admin's diktat that "You will follow our battery-vehicles-only mandates", or else.
Dayton is underrated.
When I moved to Columbus Ohio in 1958 they still had trolley busses. They were really nice. However, the big motor corporations bribed the system to replace them with "cleaner" diesel busses. So, all the trolley busses disappeared by the mid 1960s. It was a big mistake for Columbus.
Memphis, TN had an extensive network of overhead trolley wires in the 40’s, 50’s, and even into the 60’s. In the 60’s a heavy promotion by General Motors of its new diesel powered and AIR CONDITIONED buses convinced city fathers that that was the way to go. Unfortunately, that decision is still with us today along with the air pollution it helped to create.
The crazy thing is GM didn't even really need to do much to promote them as they practically sold themselves. They were good buses. Usually lasting close to 30 years.
I wish more places had trolley buses, I think they’re pretty cool. I got to ride Bologna, Italy’s system fairly often despite only diesel buses running up by where I was staying for the semester back in 2022 because they were also the most modern buses in the fleet from what I saw and they were essentially trackless trains, which I think is neat.
What a coincidence, I've studied in Bologna too, and I live in Rimini, around 120 km southeast! Several cities in the Emilia-Romagna region have trolleybus networks: besides Bologna you can find them in Rimini, Modena and Parma. In Rimini there is even a heavy BRT line, with light rail style stops, operated with articulated trolleybuses.
It's funny, in the 2010's Bologna actually tried to implement an optical guidance system on some trolleybus lines. Basically the exact same technology the Chinese CRRC touts with their "Trackless tram" however the vehicles that were ordered by Irisbus were so unreliable that they never even entered service. It was so bad that Irisbus' successor, Iveco, gave them a bunch of new ordinary trolleybuses for compensation. But you can still see the guidance strips on the pavements in some parts of Bologna with dotted lines in the middle of the lane.
@@drdewott9154 I remember seeing from the train almost every day those so-called "Civis" trolleybuses stored outside of Due Madonne bus depot. It was quite a cathastrophic failure. Now at least they're building a light rail instead, which should be a way better solution.
A similar situation happened in Rimini for the new BRT line: it was supposed to use a proprietary magnetic guidance system developed by a Dutch company called Phileas which, as far as I know, is still in use in the Netherlands. After delivering a single prototype however the company went bankrupt, and the system is now using standard VanHool articulated trolleybuses.
@@LucaPasini2 Light rail can be a better solution, but really only if it's grade separated. Having these things running in the street has a lot of unnecessary issues that a trolleybus doesn't.
As someone living in Switzerland, I find it funny to hear a city with over 100k inhabitants being called tiny. Here, that would be called a medium-size city. Anyway, trolleybuses are pretty common here. To my knowledge, no rigid trolleybuses are in regular service anymore, only articulated (18m/60ft) and bi-articulated (25m/80ft) ones. The latter are the most fun and can even be found in some cities with populations below 100k.
Because saying medium sized city would not have gathered as many clicks. [Click bait]
As a 50+ year Daytonian (well, Dayton-area-ian) I too was surprised that the 6th most populous city in the 7th most populous state in the 3rd most populous country was called tiny. Obviously not huge, I would figure that would be 1,000,000+; but still pretty good sized.
Then what do you think of cities in china that have 12 to 32 million people in them?
While Dayton has a population of about 137K the greater Dayton Metro area is over 800K. And while Dayton currently has no train service there is a plan for Amtrak to link Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati with daily service.
In sweden 100k is a big city
At one point in time decades ago, even cities in South Africa and Algeria had trolleybuses! Algiers had trolleybuses between 1934 and 1974, and Cape Town had trolleybuses between 1935 and 1964! Johannesburg had trolleybuses between 1936 and 1986, and before then, it had trams starting with horsecars in 1891, converting to electric streetcars in 1906 and ending in 1961. Meanwhile in Marrakesh, Morocco, they built a BRT (that's partly trolleybus) system in 2017! The electricity powering the vehicles comes from solar power, as Morocco has become a solar power giant! Morocco has taken many green technological initiatives! In 2014, Morocco opened the Tarfaya Wind Farm with 131 turbines! In 2016, it opened the Ouarzazate solar station, the world's largest concentrated solar power plant, saving 760K tonnes of carbon emissions every year! With wind farms and solar farms across the country, this has contributed several billion dollars to the economy and added thousands of permanent jobs! And it's all adding up, as the country is consistently ranked high in the Climate Change Performance Index, with Morocco ranked NINTH in the 2024 edition.
"How much cheese are you gonna put on your chili?" to which Skyline Chili said *"Yes."* Cheese is love, cheese is life. The story behind Skyline Chili is that in 1912, Nicholas Lambrinides emigrated to Cincinnati from Kastoria, Greece, and brought his favorite family recipes with him. To save up the money to bring his wife to the US as well, he first worked as a cook for a railroad crew and in a hotel kitchen, then opened a short-order diner. After nearly a decade, his wife was able to join him in Cincinnati and they raised five sons. By WWII, Lambrinides was working as a chef for the original Empress Chili restaurant, where he continued to tinker with a recipe which he had been developing for years. In 1949, he and three of his sons opened their own place. Skyline Chili is unique in that it is not chili con carne, but instead, Cincinnati chili is a Mediterranean-spiced sauce usually used over spaghetti or hot dogs. The sauce was created by Tom and John Kiradjieff, who also emigrated from Kastoria because of fallout from the Balkan Wars and World War I, in 1921. They began serving a stew with traditional Mediterranean spices as a topping for hot dogs, which they called "coneys" (as many Greeks stopped in Coney Island after leaving Ellis Island before arriving in the Midwest) in 1922 at their hot dog stand located next to a burlesque theater called the Empress, which they named their business after.
Tom Kiradjieff used the sauce to modify a traditional dish, speculated to have been pastitsio, moussaka or saltsa kima. He first developed a recipe calling for spaghetti to be cooked in the chili but changed his method in response to customer requests and began serving the sauce as a topping, eventually adding grated cheese as a topping for both the chili spaghetti and the coneys, also in response to customer requests. Pyongyang also has trolleybuses! It currently has 12 lines and a total length of 56.6 km! As of July 2024, the latest line opened in 2022 on Day of the Sun when a new line from Songyo to Songhwa was opened, while the line from West Pyongyang to Thermal Power was rerouted, both to serve the new Songhwa and Kyongru-dong residentials districts! The first plans for a trolleybus network were proposed in 1957, though construction only began in 1960, after Kim Il-sung ordered it. The network begun operation in April 1962!
The children of the original founder actually ran a location in Miamisburgh just outside of Dayton, I used to go there quite a bit as a kid, and one of the things that was unique about the location was that they had ice cream sandwiches. Not sure if this is still the case as I've not been in Dayton for about a decade.
Dayton ohio resident here. we love our trolley buses here. Our city along with the rest of the Miami Valley love the trolley buses ❤.
One important note: back in the early part of the 20th century, Dayton was a hub for inventors and manufacturers. Not only the Wright Brothers, but Charles Kettering (inventor of the electric starter for cars) and John Patterson (National Cash Register or NCR) had their operations there. Well into the 1970's, Dayton was home to Delco, Frigidaire, Chrysler Airtemp, NCR, DAP, and a host of smaller manufacturers.
Another awesome and informative video. It's really neat that Dayton has been so sensible about their trolley bus system in no small part to people who have seen the value of it. It's too bad Boston hasn't listened to these voices. I'll admit I've been thinking on and off for years about throwing my hat into the passenger rail/transit world. I strongly feel our future from a sustainability standpoint, both environmental and economic, and creating an equitable world is counting on it. And yes, yes, yes, yes to congestion pricing!!
My favorite routes on bus simulator was the articulated trolley bus ones :3
I live here in the nearby suburbs and moved here in 2020. I think this city is a sweet, small wonder, close to burgeoning Columbus and not far from Cincinnati. Slowly..people are starting to discover the low cost of operating here, the affordable housing, architectural character, temperate weather and yes....a unique transit system which is a potentially very attractive option for those who want to make this city their home and may not want to use a car all the time...which is really still a needed reality here, as in most of America. However...with enough people here...ith more density it will bring more amenities.
The Memphis Belle was named after pilot Robert K. Morgan's sweetheart, Margaret Polk who lived in of course, Memphis! Morgan originally intended to call it the Little One, which was his pet name for Polk. After Morgan and his copilot Jim Verinis viewed Lady for a Night, in which there is a riverboat named the Memphis Belle, he proposed that name to his aircrew! The National Museum of the US Air Force is the LARGEST and OLDEST military aviation museum in the world, so their collection is quite amazing! Besides the Memphis Belle, they also have the Apollo 15 Command Module Endeavour which carried David Scott, James Irwin, and Alfred Worden to the Moon in 1971 on NASA's fourth crewed lunar landing mission, and several Presidential aircraft, including those used by FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower.
We've had this smart and simple technology to power busses for so long, but route mileage of them in the United States woefully low. I hope that more transit agencies will electrify their busiest routes wity trolley technology instead of problematic batteries. I definitely need to pay Dayton a visit someday. Thank you!
Even the newest operations in the US have been cut... both Downtown Seattle 1990 and Boston Waterfront 2004 bus tunnels :( . Mexico does have some cool trolley bus systems that are newish including the brand new Trolebus Elevado in Mexico City... Elevated busway with trolley buses. Guadalajara went big on trolley buses in the 1970s, it's dwindled big time but still exists.
DC screwed up getting rid of the trolley system
It is a shame that Boston, Mass stupidly got rid of their trolley buses recently.
Unfortunately Route 5 South had the wires taken down this year. It has been run by a diesel bus that is now route 6
Carbons changed twice daily? I drive trolley buses in Vancouver. We change ours maybe once a day is the winter but can probably be changed every 5 days in the summer. Neat video. Dayton is on my list of places to visit.
2x is for rainy days, apparently!
Depends on their quality. In my city Kaunas, they change them daily or every other day. But in capital Vilnius, I heard carbons are crap and must be changed often.
I went to college in Dayton in the mid- to late 1970's. Students could ride the trolley buses for free and we often took them into downtown to shop at Rikes or Elder-Beerman. The old buses had a small mechanical arm of the left side that the driver would swing out when the bus was pulling away from the curb and back into traffic. The little arm had the world "Please" painted on it. It was the most polite "turn signal" I have ever seen.
In SF, when dewirement happens, the operator just gets out walks behind and uses the cords to guide the poles back onto the electrified wire.
It's been a while since I've been on a trolleybus here, but I think that's probably the case here as well. Or at least it was the last time I was on one. Also, I don't think I've ever been on a trolleybus when it did lose contact.
Its the usual method across the world.
With newer coaches and their modern battery systems, they’ll often continue on a mile or so until they get to the end of their route, or a less busy spot at least.
Dayton is not a “tiny city” by any means unless you are from NYC and use that as your benchmark for a city.
as someone from la i can say dayton is quite small
It's really neat when they put the ice scrapers on the poles and the ice comes off!
Cincinnati used to have trolley busses. I went to school there in the late 50s and enjoyed the clean, efficient service all over town. I think they were retired sometime in the 60s and replaced by diesel busses. I never understood why.
They used to have actual trolleys as well. In fact, they had an ESCALATOR for trolleys to ride uphill on since Cinci is very hilly. They even almost had a subway. Still have some holes for one.
My friend is a bus driver for the MBTA in Massachusetts and he actually drove the trolley buses in Cambridge before the MBTA decided to retire them in favor of electric buses.
Born and raised in Dayton, and until I moved to LA I had only lived in cities with Tollybus service - Dayton, Seattle, SF. They’re fantastic and we need more of them.
Also, they have an old SFMTA Bus?!?! That 80-year old one is very clearly an old Muni Christmas Coach….
Trolleybuses are the only electric buses that actually work
😂lol
very true.
Not to sound harsh, but this is patently untrue. Santiago Chile has a bus system that puts every American city to shame, with over 2,000 electric buses, a third of their fleet. The battery buses are modern, more comfortable, more reliable and quieter than the desiel busses they replaced.
@@travelsofmunch1476 US cities have had substantially worse luck with battery buses so far, especially with the harsh northern climate! Wish the govt would let us buy from Chile!
@@travelsofmunch1476 and how long will they last before they either catch fire in a catastrophic way inherent to EV battery vehicles (look it up, when they do it takes ages to put them out, and you mostly have to use water not chemicals b/c of weird battery bs), their frames crack under the weight of batteries, , or their batteries run out of charge cycles and we all decide it's time to go imperialise some other country for lithium?
One of my friends lives in Dayton. Him and the trolley lines are my motives to visit Dayton soon. Hope to get there around my Kings Island visits.
I went to Dayton in May with the hope to see and ride a trolley bus but none were running despite being a normal weekday and the new fleet. Whats the deal? Luckily was able shift to the Wright Brothers history and see both the Wright Flyer III and the trolley bus at Carillon Park.
I love Dayton, Ohio. Also check out the whitewater parks on the Great Miami River. They were made out of recycled low head dams. Excellent for kayaking and even surfing on the river!
"As keeping the fixed wire system was deemed more cost effective than removal"
COUGH COUGH Boston.
CAMBRIDGE, where the trackless trollies were, needed to perform serious street rehabilitation along the routes. The equipment needed would interfere with the wires. While trackless trollies were an improvement over the streetcars they replaced (ability to maneuver around some obstacles and no rails to maintain), battery buses are a natural improvement over trackless trollies (no wires to maintain, the ability for stacked buses to pass each other). The reason they survived in Dayton so long is you had decent service, but not super frequent service.
@@chrispontani6059 Yeah, Battery must cost nothing
@@chrispontani6059 The battery buses in Philadelphia, (which replaced half the network we had), are crap. They can't even make it through a driver's shift without having to go back to the garage to be recharged. (especially in the winter).
Battery buses are a joke... heavy, not green, expensive, short lifespan, short operating time before they need recharge, requires having 50% more vehicles in the fleet (land is a premium in urban cities). Battery buses are like trying to intentionally sabotage transit in the name of being some fake green.
@@Ponchoed I agree, until new battery chemistries become available, we shouldn't be wasting our lithium on batteries for buses when we can run overhead lines to power them. The technology for the wires has been around for over a century, and around here we've had them since sometime in the '40s.
That being said, I would be curious about the relative efficiency as buses require large batteries if that's the power source, but you do lose some power in keeping the wires powered. I have a feeling that the wires are better, but I'm not an expert.
Was eager to see what city in Ohio still had trolley buses, other than Dayton - since no way is a city of 130,000+ able to be called "tiny". Granted its not huge, that would be Columbus; or at least close (personally I consider huge to be > 1,000,000 and Columbus is just under that).
Trolleybuses! I love trolleybuses almost as much as trams!
Here in Germany we have trolleybuses in Solingen , Esslingen and Eberswalde.
That makes so much more goddamn sense than a streetcar on rails
so my car broke down , i needed to ride the bus for a few days, its been 20 years since i had to take the bus ,its $ 2 for adults, oh but now they don't accept real money, for the rides, so you have to buy a full month to ride the bus for two days, its inhuman so i am 60 and have leg issues so i have to walk 6 mills to go to my destination,
how many [people just need to ride a few times, and now cant even catch a bus in an emergency,
there are only two cab companies , and they charge $ 30 dollars per lift ride, just 4 to 5 mills, and you cant get on a bus now, so really this is impossible , what monster eliminated real cash bus fair ? this city has gone mad Dayton is being run by monsters
A super high junkie climbed a huge evergreen tree in Downtown Seattle a decade ago and was up there living in the tree for a couple days - required extensive pushing of trolleys through several blocks of de-energized wires... back when they had the old fleet without backup power.
@@Ponchoed this is the most Seattle thing I've ever heard
@@ClassyWhale In spite of that, I still love trolleybuses. I do think that giving them small batteries for things like that would make sense, or have a couple portable battery trucks to handle short breakages in the line.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade agreed, love Trolleys. Ride them often in Seattle. The new trolleys (Post 2015/2016) in Seattle all have off wire batteries that get used quite a bit for work zones and special events. Wish more cities would bring back trolleys but unfortunately we are lucky if they can hang onto what they have.
@@Ponchoed we dodged a bullet in 2008 or so when Metro wanted to change to hydrids cause it was the shiny new tech but there was such an outcry we got those new trolleys instead. Not only is the off wire great, just today the 1 line needed it to go around an accident on Queen Anne, they dont throw their poles requiring manual re-engagement
Montgomery county has a population of 537,309 most of which are near bus service.
The diesel buses that are built to look like trolleys are actually built to look like CABLE CARS, and it just looks dumb. Cable cars aren't anything like trolley cars, anyway, since the method of propulsion is completely different. . .
@@ericemmons3040 there are trolleys that look like that too, San Francisco actually has one that they run on special occasions!
@@ClassyWhale I honestly have never seen a trolley car that looks like a cable car. The two are very different, but it's my impression that most people think they are the same thing. Or am I being too harsh on most people?
Congestion pricing is not what it is pushed to be. Politicians who mismanaged the MTA for years are trying to use this monstrosity as a bailout measure which is Unconstitutional.
Glad somone else sees it for the scam it is. But we know after the elections clownchul will bring it back and do it quietly. Once it won't affect her buddies running.
I love how they go to plaza where the evilstick was first found.
@@martingr0ve64 what
@ClassyWhale Around ten years ago, the dollar store at the end of the first shot, "$1.00 Store +" formerly "1.00 Store", sold a cheap toy called "evilstick". It was a pink wand toy with a star shape on the top, and had a button that would illuminate the stick to show an image while playing a sound. For whatever reason, some of the evilsticks had a "scary variant" if you could say, where it would show an image of a zombie like creature, despite all of them being packaged in pink and a generic anime character accompanying packaging. This went to the local news since a mother shopped there and bought one for her daughter, oblivious to the fact it was one of the scary variants, which then led it into becoming some sort of internet mystery, as there only two people known to have the scary variant.
There's various videos about the evilstick on UA-cam, if you want a better explanation.
Great video…but I don’t understand why you make such a big deal about Dayton being “small”…when the reality is that size is irrelevant for something like this. Especially when you consider historical context, smaller cities than Dayton almost certainly had trolleybuses in the past. With everything supposedly “going green”, trolleybuses make 1000x more sense than battery electric buses…seeing as batteries are only for backup and therefore aren’t dragging down efficiency. A lot of energy gets lost in charging/recharging batteries, not to mention TIME that a vehicle must be out of service to recharge. Literally the best electric bus _is_ a trolleybus. What would be even better is rail…as there are half as many wires to maintain and rail is much more durable and reliable infrastructure than pavement and rubber tires. And we can look back in history here in America and abroad in the present to understand that metro size is not the most relevant factor in building/maintaining transit or especially in ridership. So many things matter more, like the practicality and speed of the route vs. driving, and how much the government prioritizes transit funding and development. The state of Ohio spends a fraction of what even surrounding states spend per capita on public transportation.
Impressive if Dayton has this technology why couldn't Philadelphia and Boston do this. For them they will be running as a normal battery electric bus with Depot charge on routes where there is overhead wires they would simply charge both ways Depot and the overhead wire.
Seattle’s can run off-wire for about 3 miles too! It’s a good backup to have, especially on route 43 which runs through a big freeway interchange rebuilt where they’ve temporarily taken down the wires
This seems the best way to implement trolley technology- in motion charging, especially on segments where multiple routes are interlined. Less downtime to charge at terminals, and any regenerative energy can be sent back to the grid rather than being capped by the battery capacity.
@FerryTerminal69 you are correct on that Boston should have done the same in the case of theirs it would be something like this overhead wires inside the bus tunnel 10 once it's out of the bus tunnel switch to battery power for the Interstate 90 Massachusetts and Ohio turnpikes Indiana east west toll road Chicago Skyway Jane Addams Tollway New York State Thruway Ted Williams Tunnel. Remember overhead wires cannot be used on interstate highways
@@benfleishman2944 That's news to me, it's good to know that that's the case.
Trolleybuses are awesome and much like legacy streetcar networks, I wish a lot more cities in North America kept their networks! Dayton is on the transit foaming list for sure! Especially with an amazing aviation museum to boot!
Apparently, we still have some in operation. Personally, I think trolleybuses make far more sense than steetcars do. They can easily change lanes to get around stalled vehicles, the can climb just about any street and the necessary work to change where the route goes is a lot less invasive than with rails.
I think they'll probably be with us pretty much forever, or at least until we get a system where light rail can get us close enough for shorter battery powered shuttles to get us the rest of the way.
Thank you for this video! I went to college near Dayton, and always wondered about their Trolleybuses!!
Once you've got the wires up, there's little reason to take them down as electric buses are much more reliable and require much less maintenance than ICE or hybrid buses.
My wife is from Dayton and she rode the yellow trolleybuses that ran past her house.
Grew up in Dayton riding those same Skoda/ETI busses, and then a few moves later was riding the same coaches in San Francisco - both cities had teamed up for an order from Skoda (assembled by ETI to help meet Buy America rules), so it was a funny coincidence I lived in both cities that had them outside of Europe.
I like trollybuses. I ride them a lot in Budapest. The sound is more relaxing than a diesel engine
I try to keep telling people, Ohio is legit.
It costs more for me to take a trolleybus to and from downtown than the gas and parking together would cost, but it's entirely worth it. Less wear on my car, overall energy and emissions savings, and a pleasant experience. My day was pretty much ruined when I went for a trip downtown and it was a diesel bus instead of the usual trolleybus on my route a couple months ago.
Note that older trolleybusses used trolley wheels instead of graphite blocks, and I am not sure about your quote on graphite block replacement
@@theleastofpilgrims3379 that's what the bus fleet manager told me! Call him up if you'd like to double check
@@ClassyWhale by the way in replying to your comment you have shown yourself to be a very classy youtuber indeed. I wish you the best as a fellow trolleybus enthusiast. By the way, I have several copies of Jane’s Urban Transport Systems, the first of which I persuaded my parents to buy for me when it was new, in 1997, which at the time cost $400, and now the price for a new edition, which alas I do not have, is eyewatering, but old editions are useful as historical records. If ever you would like to use one or amything else in my library I would be happy to arrange for it. God bless you!
0:15 "four cities" Shot this a couple years ago and you had five.
The economic effects of both systems can be studied in Union Illinois.
They have both Trolley tracks and Electric Busses.
It might become the study capital of the Planet,
if the effects of various Transportation Methods are actually investigated?
Have You ever been there?
I started to say that have not seen a trolley bus and most of the wires are gone lived here all my life
Vancouver, BC is the last Canadian city to run trolleys.
4:42 nearly got me!
Ok so I’ve got Dayton and Seattle but I forgot where the other two systems with them are. (Btw I live in Seattle and trolleys are the best)
Philadelphia and San Francisco are the other two!
@@AverytheCubanAmerican Oh I completely forgot Philly has trolleybuses.
@@realquadmoo Vancouver BC has them too
Seattle used to have an absolutely massive number of dual power buses due to the downtown bus tunnel. Anything that ran through the tunnel had to either run on battery power or through the electric lines due to issues with ventilation. So we had a massive number of buses that would get to the tunnel entrance, and stop while the driver got out to raise the power connection to tap into the overhead lines.
That isn't the case these days because the tunnel is just used for lightrail, but I'm not sure if there are other places i the world that did that.
Irm org has a Dayton trolley bus
Indianapolis had them and even manufactured them. Stupid to remove them.
Yes, in fact Indianapolis sold its newest locally built Marmons to Milwaukee, when the two local transport companies were under common ownership, and a number of those trackless trolleys went on to Mexico City.
I would like to visit Dayton, and funny enough I always wanted to visit there to go to the Air Force museum. Also the fact that I majored in an Aerospace related degree program, So Dayton Ohio is on my list to go. But wasn't aware of a great Trolleybus system they have there too. I know a friend of mines who lives in Ohio tells me about places like Dayton and Columbus. Anyways thats awesome an employee showed you the Trolleybus Depot.
For the museum, Go early in the day and wear comfortable shoes. Bring money for the flight simulator. It's like $25 I think.
Great video I Enjoyed It I Live About 300 Miles From This System I Use to Live In Boston ma They Got Rid Of Their System 3 Years Ago 😊
Dayton is a rockin’ place
For all that, might as well have a real trolley complete with tracks.
how wasn’t I notified about this
Be sure to go into UA-cam settings and turn on notifications even if the bell is on
@@realquadmoo I thought the OP was talking about the existence of these trolleybuses, but I could be wrong.
Who told you Dayton is a tiny town?
Irm org has a Dayton and Boston trolley buses
For those who don't know, IRM is the Illinois railroad museum in Union Illinois - to the west of Chicago
Yes, and working examples from Dayton, Seattle, Chicago, Milwaukee, and on rare occasions Des Moines.
Ok Cincy native here. I gotta ask, did you like the Skyline?
Yes I did!
@@ClassyWhale you have passed the test. Welcome to the chilliverse.
@@ClassyWhale heck yeah! One of us!
I would actually live here because of this, lol.
2:08 woa one to two times **daily**?
😳 Surely, you can't be serious.
This surprises me as well
Dayton also hosts the WGI world championships every year!
Yeah about those backup diesels, my first sighting of a trolleybus was way back when in Bern (Switzerland) and I was shocked to hear a small genset fire up to save said trolleybus from being stuck in a neutral section at a crossroads next to the Zytglogge \m/
Wrapping up with Skyline? Patrician taste.
The 3 C and D is in play again. If my stupid democrat friends vote November it can be a winner even in Ohio.
The people that complain about buses taking over the trolley lines / trolley buses (always pointing the finger at GM too) fails to realize or has no clue that GM (or Ohio's own Flxible) didnt need to do much to convince city leadership to buy their buses. The GM buses practically sold themselves as did the Flxibles (more so the GM buses) . People forget that back then things were built to last and those older buses were no exception. Those buses had no issue running 25-30 years.
They would better than today 😅😅
Brilliant video sir.
Where did you get that miles footage
Miles
"But where can I park my car?' is a question mass transit users don't have to ask. And if there is no or greatly reduced need for parking lots, businesses of all sorts can locate in older neighborhoods where they cannot under car over-dependency. Hence, more jobs, and social health in older parts of town.
The way it's shaping up around here as our link light rail system has been expanding is that there are new routes that run mostly directly to the stations from various neighborhoods and because the routes are shorter, with fewer total routes, they run a lot more frequently.
The big issue we had was that the transit agency started discontinuing routes in anticipation of new stations opening too early. It meant that what was a relatively easy half hour bus ride for my mom most of the way to work got a lot longer because the bus was discontinued in anticipation of the station opening.
What is the other city , Philly my hometown so I know they have them , SF , Dayton , ?
Seattle!
Love how Apple Maps doesn’t show a map for these…
I hope they stay
Remember in Cincinnati when kid
Because it's the neighborhood of make-believe.
Toronto Street cars are more of a ride than transit.
I think if they have priority signaling and no parking along routes, it could be better.
Tiny?
“tiny” ?
@@Hillbilly-mgjwv relatively
Want you coming back Pittsburgh tour
This guy mentioned Ohio in Ohio 💀 So much rizz
They are pulling overhead wiring on once used routes. Dayton is slowly phasing them out.
Why?
BEBs are... le bad!
Good video until you talked about my congestion scam being a good thing. The truckers spoke and that clown governor actually backed down. That sceme will hurt everyone but more so the lower earners.
They took only in ohio to another level
2:04 you didn’t see graphite because there was no graphite there!
yes there was!
@@ClassyWhale You’re delirious. The reactor core is fine. It was a hydrogen tank explosion.
@@brunhildevalkyrie is this a reference?
@@ClassyWhale Yes, to the Chernobyl tv show
Us old-schoolers call it carbon.
Why didn’t they just buy normal batterie buses then they could have done the same thing that the MBTA did removing the system entirely.
I think that would be more expensive
@@ClassyWhale you have the battery in the bus anyway and there is no need for an expensive network of wires.
@@nashorn9745 Trolleybuses can run continuously 24/7, electric buses have to stop for charging and if the operating line is long, this can happen during the day, which affects the frequency of service. Another difference is that for EVs you need a more energy-intensive charging station because it has to deliver the same amount of energy in a much shorter time. Also trolleybuses are lighter( the battery is only a short distance buffer) than similarly sized electric buses, so they have better efficiency at city speeds.
They already had the infrastructure in place, that's the hard and expensive part.
@@Ponchoed you need to maintain that infrastructure and this is very expensive.
Toronto still runs trolley buses along with street cars too.
No we don't
Not since 1993
Interesting, but an incredibly ugly town
Dayton has some beautiful residential neighborhoods, but the trolleys are currently not running through any of them. Check out the Oregon District or the Dayton View Historic District.
@@ethankocjan8543 I think that's pretty typical. Up until the recent development most of the trolleybuses in Seattle ran through uglier parts of the city. A lot of that probably had to do with he NIMBYs mostly living in better looking areas. But, the wires aren't that ugly if they're in areas where the rest of the infrastructure looks OK.
Dayton has these buses because the Democrat politicians who run Dayton wanted to funnel large amounts of taxpayer money into this system, no matter how inefficient and wasteful it is.
@@tigerphid9677 wow
And what it will be efficient?