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收到车友转发的一位英国车迷写的关于北京电车的报告,我不知道此公的名姓和年龄,但极有可能是一位曾经生活在英国尚有电车年代中的老人,虽然电车在他的家乡故土已消声蹑迹几十年,可电车情结不减当年。大家不妨仔细。
1 Beijing
There are 15-16 Trolleybus routes in Beijing and the system is still being
extended. New vehicles are on order and are currently being supplied in
preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games to be held in the Chinese Capital.
Unlike Shanghai and Guangzhou, Beijing is renewing its high capacity articulated fleet, although many routes are operated by rigid vehicles. The older articulated trolleys had a driver and two conductors while the newer rigid trolleybuses are one-person operated. The fare is $1.00 for non air-conditioned trolleys and $2.00 for air-conditioned ones.
The system has several interesting features, particularly the measures to
accommodate dislike of overhead catenary in sensitive areas. I use the word
catenary advisedly since much of the overhead is of the Russian style with
the contact wires suspended below support cables along the roadway which
are in turn held by span wires across or bracket arms extending above the
road. All the routes crossing the main east-west boulevard or operating
through the central shopping streets do so using battery power. Unlike the
UK, where batteries might propel a trolleybus a mile or so at 5 mph, those
in Beijing permit quite smart acceleration and several kilometres range
at 30-40 kph. After crossing the visually sensitive areas the trolleybuses
are driven into a marked box on the highway where the driver depresses a
button to raise the trolley booms hydraulically into inverted V-shaped re-wiring
troughs on the overhead. During the remainder of the journey the batteries
are recharged ready for the return trip. I suspect that it would be much
cheaper to use a car-engine driven generator as I understand that the batteries
have only 12 months’ life and are very heavy and expensive.
Several sections of wired route cover urban motorway style roads, where
the trolleybuses sweep across from their kerbside stops on service roads
to join fast-moving traffic on 3-lane highways, under, over and along viaducts
in places. Some sections have as many as five routes traversing them, with
several other sections having four or three routes together.
The Beijing undertaking supplied the initial overhead for the Hong Kong
trolleybus test track, which Citybus staff subsequently extended to make
a complete peripheral circle. This was not catenary-style, but conventional
wiring mainly supported by bracket arms.
I believe that a BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) line is being tried north and south
of the City Centre with central islands and offside door equipped vehicles,
but for reasons beyond me, diesel buses are being (or have been) acquired
although such a route would be ideal for trolleybuses. |
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