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> they could have taken a trolley bus, put train wheels on it, and we would have had a faster and cheaper streetcar I don't think this'd work quite as easily a
by iggldiggl 6y ago
> they could have taken a trolley bus, put train wheels on it, and we would have had a faster and cheaper streetcar
I don't think this'd work quite as easily as you'd imagine. If you'd literally take a bus, take out its steering and replace its wheels with train wheels, the resulting contraption would have diabolical cornering abilities with regards to the tight curves typically encountered on streetcar networks.
Two-axle streetcars typically don't have a wheelbase much above 10 or 11 feet at most (and that's already pushing it – there's a reason why everybody moved on to vehicles with bogies or otherwise steerable axles), whereas modern buses have a wheelbase closer to 20 ft or so.
- extrapickles 6y agoI was thinking one would replace the tires with train wheels, so you keep the steering system intact. The biggest downside to doing exactly this is that car traffic will not have traction as most of their tire contact patch will be on the steel rails, rather than the pavement. Or even better, just buy off-the-shelf trolley busses, as they are cheap, and you need a fraction of the infrastructure.