This is a 1960s street car {being followed by a new fangled "bus"}using over head electrical wires and tracks in Pittsburgh.
Posted on 07/17/2021 7:38:43 PM PDT by Hojczyk
When I was a kid in Montebello, Ca. we used to catch two trolley lines to the beach.
DAMN; that really dates me, doesn’t it!
They live in a participation trophy award world with an endless stream of tax dollars and a fawning media.
Yes, lead acid.
CC
Would you believe Canadian born Jennifer Granholm, Biden's new Energy Department Tsar, and ex Governor of Michigan? She's a director of Proterra. She claims to have resigned after being named Energy Secretary. She also pocketed $ millions in the process.
Chicago had those also up to the 1960’s. Wow, the overhead wiring was ugly and dilapidated. Electrical cables taped up with balls of tape as big as your fist. I remember my grandfather and I were helping the bus driver keeping the “brushes” at the back of the bus on the overhead wires as we went along. What would OSHA think about that today???
This is a 1960s street car {being followed by a new fangled "bus"}using over head electrical wires and tracks in Pittsburgh.
Quick napkin calculations suggested that every man, woman, and child ( census numbers) could be provided with new median priced sedan every year for twenty years. Annual operating costs weren't added in consideration.
Think of the increased productivity and wealth creation not to mention increased tax revenues.
And of course the actual construction costs exceeded the projected costs as usual...while the much touted increased job numbers never fully materialized.
Somewhere I still have that sheet of calcs....
Current US Secretary of Energy and former failure of a Governess Jennifer Granholm was a member of the bus company board of directors.
Something else she failed at.
I think that’s a Buick station wagon in the background. When I was a kid, my mom had the Oldsmobile version of that beast. It was like driving a bus.
Had a 454 engine (all gas, no electric (just so as not to hijack the thread)
It burned a quarter tank of gas just to get to school and back.
When I got out of the service in 1962, I bought a used Olds rag top {and it really was a rag top} for $300.
Had it painted at Earl Sheib's for $29.00 and my Italian Grand Mother hand sewed the leaky rag top {and it really worked!!}.
Those Oldsmobiles {and most other cars of the times} were built like tanks and could really take a beating.
We called it the "Rolls Hardly", rolled down one hill and hardly made the next, but it was a fun car and the girls loved it.
Memories that send me to Confession according to Jimmah Carter...sinned in his heart:)
My dad had this weird fringe benefit where the company paid for gas in my moms car.
I drove that monster car and didn’t drive for efficiency.
Philly had a complete system of both street track and trackless trolleys, in addition to the conventional buses, subways and elevated “The El” . Rode the 66 for many years. This piece is dated but useful in a glimpse of the history of Philly trolleys...
Philadelphia has the longest continuous operation of trackless trolleys in the United States.
https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/SEPTA_Trackless_Trolley_Lines
Do liberals ever actually ........ think?
And, as a bonus, 192 pages of liberal drivel on “re-imagining” transit...NO ONE will be held accountable for the massive, predictable failures identified within...
The Philadelphia Transit Plan
Full Plan Document
February 2021
https://www.phila.gov/media/20210222110702/OTIS-Philadelphia-Transit-Plan.pdf
The city TAXPAYERS paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses, subsidized in part by a $2.6 million federal grant PAID FOR BY US TAXPAYERS.
Oopsie. Sorry we wasted your money
Paywall. Thanks for nothin.
When I was a kid visiting NYC, I remember buses being powered by overhead electric lines. They had a big rod attached to the overhead electric line if I remember right.
Moe and the boys build bus.
These green bus experiments all seem to fail because of poor design or totally unrealistic expectations. The Minneapolis school district some years ago decided to fuel its diesel buses with “biodiesel” a concoction of diesel and soybean oils. On the first cold day the buses stalled because biodiesel gelled in cold temperatures leaving buses full of school kids stranded in freezing weather. The Metropolitan Council, an unelected quasi government in the Twin Cities, similarly with great hoopla bought some electric buses less than two years ago. They too were quickly abandoned for similar problems to those in Philadelphia.
I have to laugh that Ford and other automakers, under government largesse, are rolling out electric pickup trucks that are totally impractical for the jobs that farmers, ranchers and contractors need pickups.
Yes. An Electric Kool Aid Acid Test as Tom Wolfe would put it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.