Trolleybus birthay
Trolleybus enthusiasts from around the world will be in Wellington next week to mark the 50th birthday of the city's trolleybus service.
Omnibus Society spokesperson Peter Rendall says vintage buses from Christchurch, Foxton and possibly Auckland will join the society's own veteran vehicles on display in Bunny St, near the Railway Station, next Saturday (27 March).
Some of the buses will tour around the city during the week, and will all will take part in a parade at 10.30am on Sun 28 March from Mt Victoria to the Railway Station. They will then offer rides to Courtney Pl and back.
Peter Rendall says trolleybuses originated in Germany in the 1890's, soon after electricity became commercially available. They spread to cities such as York and Shanghai in the 1920s, but only came widespread in NZ after World War 2 when they seemed cheaper than the alternative of replacing worn out tram lines.
More recently, trolleys have themselves given way to cheaper diesel buses. They disappeared from New Plymouth in 1967, Auckland in 1980 and Dunedin in 1982.
Alone of NZ cities, the Wellington Regional council has so far maintained a subsidy to keep trolleys on the road, citing benifits including noise and the emission of green house gases. More the 1300 other cities, mainly in Europe and the Americas, still run them.
However, the regional council agreed recently to fund the trolleys only for another five years. Beyond that, Peter Rendall believes that it may be economic to use buses that can run on trolley wires where they exist and then switch to batteries.
" Designline in Ashburton have built two prototype battery-powered buses with a generator set in the back," he says.
"That would be a wonderful tecnology - no smelly diesel buses blasting past the cafe dwellers. The manafacturer would suggest that it is potentially an economic option."
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