CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
A small boy with a pin could have sorted that lot out in no time.
One of the photograph contributors to the Railscot website got a picture of the platform lorry removing the baloons. Apparently the removal took 20 seconds, trying to get the power off and the vehicle in place is what took 2 hours.
They wouldn't get away with such a slovenly approach to maintaining the service on a "proper" transport network like London Underground.
"trying to get the power off"
It did seem 'surprising' that they had to turn off a whole section so that trams were stopping at Murrayfield rather than Haymarket!
Surely it wouldn't have been beyond the realms of a £776m budget to obtain a vehicle with sufficient insulation to allow the balloons removal without any need to locate the circuit breaker.
It's a 750V system. The olde system was (I think) 550V. When the trolley pole came off the cable, a man with a long wooden stick with a hook on it went round the back of the tram and guided the pole back onto the cable.
Cooncil should invest in some wooden sticks.
a man with a long wooden stick with a hook on it
Well I was close! :-)
I'm confused by that article.
It says almost half a million in the first month. It also says "an average of 90,000 passenger trips per week." And that would make it under 400,000.
But then it says, "The total has been calculated for the three weeks since 130,000 passengers boarded carriages in the first seven days of operation.".
So is it 300,000 over days 8-30 + 200,000 in week one?
I'm confused.
On another note, I took a bus into town today to run an errand and fancied taking a tram while I was going there (I've used the tram before).
But, because it doesn't stop anywhere useful for me - other than Princes St & Haymarket - I ended up using buses instead.
Not to mention their use of "premium fare" to mean anyone not using a concessionary card to travel for free.
Now that's what I call rounding up!
Was speaking to the screen print artist Keith Thompson today. He does transport themed work e.g. No 41 bus cards, tea towels, pint capacity tea mugs etc. He has sold out of all his tram products such has been the demand.
He is interested in doing the NEPN on tea towel [he has the tram route, only one left] or his own creation Porty to Crammond coastal cycle. He had been approached by he Inner Tube people and thought best to focus on one of their routes.
He has sold out of all his tram* products such has been the demand.
* Wheels not to scale
Taxi drivers spokesperson "perfect storm" because council took away rank on George Street!
Yep, it will be Armageddon as people struggle to see those taxis with lights on slightly further along the road.
Comedy gold from the same people who tried to tell us the tram would stop "several hundred yards" from the airport.........
Multiple choice track gauge!
But shows what could have been done in Haymarket Yards.
Is that not two overlapping sets of cable-car (or rack assisted) tracks? Don't think any friction-adherence tram could get up that slope without assistance
Something like uphill right rail, cable run, downhill tram rail, uphill left rail, cable run, downhill tram rail.
The olde Edinburgh system had a number of sections of single-line running where the road was particularly narrow or where it had to pass a bridge underneath the centre of the span. I think I can recall seeing pictures of such 1 1/2 width sections too.
@chdot
That looks like a cable car. Two of the 'tracks' look like slots that contain the cable (one in each direction).
Although I'm not sure why it needs the overhead wires?
Also cable cars always pass each other at known locations, therefore track can be shared where they don't pass
Although I'm not sure why it needs the overhead wires?
I'm now assuming it's a rack and cog tramway, with motors onboard (hence the overhead wires), powering a cog which engages a rack in the central slot to grind it up the steep gradients. Turin has such a system for sure.
I assumed that chdot knew all that and the "multiple choice" comment was a little flippant.
I can see that it is easier to run overlapping track for cable cars but surely in a modern tram system it would be pretty easy to implement something similar for short sections? Or is the tram frequency just too high?
Or is the tram frequency just too high?
If you're referring to the Edinburgh trams service frequency then now it's you that's being flippant ;)
"I assumed that chdot knew all that and the "multiple choice" comment was a little flippant."
Not entirely.
Still confused by the overhead wires and the 'cable' part.
I believed overlapping tracks was considered for Haymarket Yards, but ruled out for 'safety' reasons (and/or frequency/capacity).
P.s. Only just realised what is going on. The tracks don't overlap - they are too close for trams/cars to pass. I think talk at HY was about overlap - but I might be wrong.
Still confused by the overhead wires and the 'cable' part.
See comments above about it being rack-and-cog. Cables supply current, slot in the middle not for a cable but for a rack system?
P.s. Only just realised what is going on. The tracks don't overlap - they are too close for trams/cars to pass. I think talk at HY was about overlap - but I might be wrong.
My take on it is that they do overlap in the order mentioned above (replacing "cable slot" with "rack slot") and that it's intended for single direction operation at any one time. Because the rack is offset from centre, it would not be possible to use the same set of tracks for uphill and downhill travel.
After this short, narrow section of hill is negotiated, the tracks would separate out again to two-way running.
It gets worse...
I'm troubled by the dual pantographs. The pantograph looks almost as wide as the tram. But since the tracks have significant overlap, I would expect the wires to also overlap! Unless the panto is offset...
Also, why didn't they use the rail tracks for the return current, instead of having a dual supply/return arrangement?
After a bit of googling, it's a funicular tram system in Lisbon, with the wonderful name of the Elevador da Gloria.
It is externally powered and does have over-lapping track sections. I think the way it works is that its somewhere between being a funicular and a tram. It's primarily designed to move people up the way, so is always going to be heavier going up. Therefore the weight of the descending car cannot be relied upon to power it, so there is electric assist to haul it up. This avoids the need for a fixed winding station. It originally used water power and later steam.
I assume because it was converted to electric running as long ago as 1915 might explain the above question about the rather unconventional system of power tramsmission. Never being designed to be electric, the most sensible system of current returning through the rail isn't necessarily what they found easiest and cheapest 100 years ago.
I think the photo is of the Elavador de Bica in Lisbon, which is a funicular railway. The tracks in the photo don't overlap, but are very close together but that shouldn't be a problem as the two cars should never pass each other at this point.
I suppose the overhead wires could be to supply electric power to the cars - not sure about that though.
See also Ascensor do Lavra, the third of the funiculars in Lisbon. Of course there is also the Eiffel Lift.
None of the hills in Lisbon are massively steep but I guess it gets quite warm. You can buy books of tickets to make the journeys cheaper.
The trams in Lisbon are also good and have never been dug up then replaced.
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Andy Alexander (@apsiloritis) tweeted at 9:52pm - 29 Jul 14:
@edinburghpaper here is a shot from tram that was blocking eastbound traffic princes st this afternoon
http://pic.twitter.com/leSxg6EiuP
(https://twitter.com/apsiloritis/status/494223961576980480)
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So no-one willing/able to tell driver to 'proceed with caution'!!
(With or without red flag.)
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A Transport for Edinburgh spokesman said the trams were turning round in an effort “to keep things moving”.
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(Video added since yesterday.)
Well, as a counter-balance to all these 'trams getting stuck' stories. For the last hour or so the trams have been the only reliable way into/out of the airport due to a crash on Eastfield Road.. Hooray for the Trams!!!
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