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Tim Watts[_3_]

On 01/04/15 16:50, wrote:
On Wed, 01 Apr 2015 11:16:30 +0100, Tim Watts
wrote:

On 01/04/15 09:41, stuart noble wrote:
Each bus must have carried a rather
long pole

I believe the London ones did have a long pole.

The latvin trolley buses I've been on are much more elegant - each of
the two wires retracts into a spring loaded reel on the back of the bus
(think vacuum cleaner cord retract) but it is nit string enough to
overcome the upwards spring in the pickup pole - so it reels in and out
as the pole moves.

Trolley retrievers . Hardly used in the UK though one system which
started to adopt modern practice started to use them,Walsall?

I'm guessing your Latvian examples are single deck

Yes they were.

Good point - had not thought how i would work with a double decker...

where as UK ones
were mainly double deck. This meant the ropes from the spring loaded
reels could in some circumstances on a sharp bend become caught on the
rear "corners" of a double Decker , on a single they would clear it.
So the bamboo pole was the usual method. another contributor mentioned
the bamboo being hung on the side which was a sensible place to hang
it but many like London kept them underneath to be pulled out
rearwards. problem was as traffic got busier how many following
vehicles left a 20ft gap so the pole could be pulled out.
Chaos usually ensued until a gap could be made even in the 60's.
At places where dewirements were likely such as busy road junction
between routes a bamboo pole was usually kept hanging from one of the
kerbside poles that supported the wires.
Very occasionally the wires fell down .
Some may have seen this elsewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmuhKWtW5Yg

G.Harman