Archive for September 11th, 2008
“B.C. transit collisions up 63 per cent” Sun
I am not going to get into the substance of the story. If anything it is of little consequence. What I want to draw attention to is, once again, the incompetence of the sub-editors at the Sun. Who seem to be appallingly ignorant for a local paper. BC Transit is a provincial government crown corporation responsible for providing transit service everywhere outside Metro Vancouver. As Randy Shore notices, here Coast Mountain Bus Company provides the bus service “under contract” to its parent, the South Coast of British Columbia Transportation Authority (aka Translink). BC Transit ceased to have anything to do with this region in 1999. But the sub editors at the Sun have yet to notice.
If they can get this sort of thing wrong about the city where they live and work, do you trust any information they control about the rest of the world?
Aged trolleys sold to Argentine city
Oakridge deadline
These trolleybuses are not going to be scrapped. They are now on their way to Mendoza, Argentina. Translink gets better than scrap value, Mendoza gets a really cheap bus: $2,300 each plus shipping costs.
Trolleybuses can last for a long time since we do not use much salt. The body is in fact the weakest part of the bus, especially since these were not designed as trolleybuses but adapted from a diesel design. The poles on the roof with their heavy load – they have big springs to keep them pressed up underneath the wires – do create stresses. The electrical components can last a long time. An electric motor can last 40 years or more – longer if rewound. Of course the electronic components will also last but technically become obsolete quite quickly. Toronto at one time simply rebodied old trolleybuses and kept them going.
I wonder how long it will be before some savvy travel agent starts selling package tours to trolleybus enthusiasts to visit their old friends “down where the moon is small”.
Stephen Rees's blog 