DEWIRED
At the close of December, 1992, the trolleys quietly rolled into the new Wentworth Street yard from their last runs on Barton Street and unceremoniously ended 100 years of electric transit service in Hamilton. No crowds lined the route, no pipers played, no drums beat, no speeches stirred an assembled throng. It was not the end of one great age and the bright, shining dawn of another. It was decidedly not a repeat of that morn in 1951 when the first gleaming Brills had replaced the aged, squealing, steel-wheeled dreadnoughts.
No! This dark day in December was the culmination of a protracted struggle to stifle the last gasp of a much-loved service. A service I think deserves more than a tiny notation in the annals of history that on such a day it was discontinued. The trolley service that I spent the best part of the last twelve years of my working life driving didn’t just get discontinued. It was systematically undermined, sabotaged and ultimately betrayed.
In 1980, when I went to work for the HSR, the company’s Flyers were the very backbone of its service. Everyday nearly half of the system’s passengers rode a trolley to get to work or school or the stores. At quitting time, a trolley silently slipped away from the curb downtown on each of the three electric routes as frequently as once every four minutes…LOADED! As a driver, I couldn’t conceive of handling the crowds any other way…no diesel in the fleet could begin to compete with the trolley’s seamless getaway or match its performance on routes with schedules so tight every second counted. Well over 30 million riders were patronizing the little HSR every year then and were showing no sign of abating. It would have been inconceivable to any driver or passengers alike that anything could change except for the better. But it did.
Mr. Cooke who had been the General Manager for years and who was both a strong advocate for the trolleys and the service in general retired. Still, in 1982, under the new leadership of Heinz Schweinbenz, the company spent almost $1 million rebuilding the oldest trolleys in the fleet. They were stripped to their frames, motors were rewound, insulation and electrical components were replaced, new seats and floors were installed and the buses were repainted inside and out. And Mr. Schweinbenz in apparent support of the effort remarked that the work would “extend the trolleys’ service another 10 years”.
But less than 2 years later (in August, 1984) we got the first indication that the trolleys were in trouble. A report presented to the transit committee said the trolleys had neglected electrical systems (they had all just been repaired or replaced, as necessary, on the oldest buses and the newest trolleys were only six years old…barely broken in) and that the power supply and distribution system needed upgrading (both the substations and overhead were well-maintained and reliable). The report recommended against the upgrading and suggested the trolleys be phased out in 1993 when the coaches would reach the end of their useful life.
Then, in May, 1986, another report prepared under Mr. Schweinbenz recommended ending the trolley service. In support of it, he said the trolleys were “outdated and unreliable” (4 years after he rebuilt them). He said 40% of the electric fleet was out of service on a daily basis (not because it wasn’t dependable but, in part, because he had pulled them off one of their routes) and that the installation of overhead in the new Wentworth garage then being planned would add $1 million to its cost. So he recommended replacing the trolleys with compressed natural gas-fuelled buses (at the time, under a Ministry of Transportation initiative, the company had one running but the start of its test period was then almost a year away. So it would be even longer before he would have any meaningful results available on which to base any recommendations).
At a “last chance” first public meeting held later that month, a few shortcomings in the report became apparent. Its author simply ignored the North American trolley suppliers and the developments in trolley technology in Europe when assembling his data. He also ignored the CNG bus…comparing only diesels with trolleys. Finally, he ignored a report prepared a couple years earlier which showed the annualized capital cost and operating cost of trolleys were significantly lower than diesels or alternative fuel vehicles and which supported the savings claimed by other cities at the time. I guess when you’ve got your conclusion…there’s no point in confusing yourself with facts.
On the heels of that embarrassment, in November, 1986, the HSR got a dual mode articulated demonstrator trolley from Neoplan in the United States. In announcing its trial, Mr. Schweinbenz said he had known about this bus for the last 2 years (now where was he in May when his consultant told us there were no North American trolley suppliers?).
The bus was a hit (!) with the drivers and the public but the HSR didn’t order any.
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Before I move along I would be remiss if I failed to mention several trivial incidents which occurred that summer. They were of interest to some at the time and ultimately of no apparent consequence.
When Mr. Cooke was General Manager, trolley power outages were so rare that they were “events”. If they occurred, they were invariably short and deliberate (usually, to facilitate some tricky repair). In fact, I had seen so few of such short duration that I couldn’t see any good reason for Hamilton to buy dual mode buses.
But that summer, with the trolley debate raging and a vote on their fate hanging over them, we had several serious failures. The first one I experienced occurred during an afternoon rush hour. It tied up the east end service to Donn Avenue on the King line and Bell Manor on Barton…an inconvenience to a large number of passengers. Diesels had to be scrambled to shuttle riders from the short turn loop on each route to the eastern ends of the lines. It was all very dramatic and a major embarrassment for a mode that had provided such reliable service for so many years. At the time, when I asked, I was told a minor problem had caused a breaker to trip…”Nothing serious”. And the delay in restoring power was due to the fact some unnamed firm was looking after that substation…”it took someone awhile to get there”. “It” couldn’t and wouldn’t “happen again” I was assured.
Then it did. One outage was probably an accident. But a second became suspicious…particularly when it occurred at about the same time on the same section…
Some of the drivers became damned annoyed by the interruptions we had that summer. Not surprisingly, more than a few thought maybe it was time we got rid of such troublesome trolleys. While others joked about the likelihood we’d have a shutdown on a given day at a certain time…hoping they’d be near a coffee shop when it happened and wondering why the times couldn’t be posted in advance.
Of course, a few became convinced that there was a deliberate attempt being made to sabotage the trolleys…an occasional inconvenience might just produce enough complaints to determine the outcome of the debate. But I was never convinced there was any conspiracy. I was confident I knew the new management team well enough to dismiss the incidents as the product of simple incompetence.
Eventually, the outages ended…before the big vote was taken. After the local council decided to save the trolleys and direct the HSR to study expanding the service (rejecting both their transit commissioner’s recommendation and the Ministry of Transportation’s preferred option, the CNG bus), there were no further problems. No doubt it was all just an unfortunate coincidence that the trolleys were letting us down at the same time their fate was to be decided.
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In August, 1988, with planning for the new Wentworth garage proceeding, HSR staff proposed spending almost $1.5 million to equip only the 16 newest trolleys (the 7800s) with auxiliary power units (to permit off wire running in the street and new garage). The expenditure was approved. So now the HSR will spend almost 50% more money on 16 buses than what they said it would cost to accommodate the entire electric fleet in the new garage.
In 1990, the HSR moved into the new Wentworth Street Transportation Centre. At which time, the older trolleys effectively, if not actually, became scrap since they couldn’t be conveniently operated out of a building with no overhead. Most of them sat rotting at the Mountain garage (with their innards exposed to the elements to ensure they could never be economically returned to the road). While the auxiliaries on the newer trolleys proved to be of dubious value…they took up valuable passenger space, were unreliable and so noisy they couldn’t be operated with passengers on board. But perhaps the most telling sign the trolleys were “going” (at least as far as the HSR was concerned …no matter what their local political bosses might direct) was that the buses weren’t repaired and painted when the auxiliaries were installed.
You see as far as Mr. Schweinbenz was concerned the trolleys were supposed to be gone before the move to the new garage took place. That’s why overhead wasn’t needed and was never installed. The auxiliaries were only installed to give the company enough equipment to operate until it could obtain the CNG buses it and the Ministry favored.
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On June 30, 1988 , the test period for the CNG buses came to an aborted end (the 2 year trial was cut to 17 months…the results were getting worse and worse). That September, a report entitled “Hamilton Street Railway Compressed Natural Gas Bus Demonstration Project—Final Report” was released. And while it was not widely circulated, it did become the basis for the HSR management’s (and the Ministry of Transportation’s) promotion of the CNG option. At the time, it and the HSR’s determined march towards the end of electric service caused me considerable consternation. Unfortunately, in Hamilton, I found too few who would listen to or support my stand.
I think a few of the observations I made then still bear repeating:
“First, the Hamilton Street Railway CNG Bus Demonstration Project was funded by several government bodies and Union Gas. For government bodies substitute one word, taxpayer. With monstrous government deficits, I question the whole idea that it is government’s job to fund research and development of a new bus technology. I can understand the interest of Union Gas…let the companies which will profit from the sale of such buses develop them. The government should set clean air standards then let the market find the best way to meet them. I know I was perfectly happy with the current zero emissions vehicle, the trolley.
The report says, among other factors, the experiment was undertaken because of the anticipated environmental benefit that would be available from the replacement of diesel-fuelled buses with low exhaust emission CNG buses in the high density areas which could not be served by trolleys…the focus was to be on replacing diesels…yet all the talk has revolved around dumping the trolleys for CNG buses…no study of the trolleys is presented in the report…only the diesels are compared. Yet this study forms the basis for the dump the trolley movement.
In looking at the report, I have accepted the numbers as accurate even though one might suspect the study would put the CNG bus in the best possible light…
The report says “a part of the “Go/No Go” engine acceptance tests involved the demonstration that the CNG bus would not exceed a fuel consumption of 1.5 times that of the standard 1977 GM diesel bus measured on an energy basis. Fuel cost and bus range considerations were involved in the selection of the ratio.” Fuel consumption above that ratio would make the bus too costly with respect to fuel use and so limit its range as to make it undesirable in revenue service. (You should bear in mind CNG has the additional advantage of being untaxed as a vehicle fuel.)
In phase 1 tests with a CNG bus receiving lots of “TLC”, the standard was met.
But as the project proceeded the early results of 48.9 m3/100 km to 57.5 m3/100 km were no longer met. In regular service the converted buses averaged 76.8 m3/100 km during the 17 month test period (53% higher than the result in the phase 1 “Go/No Go” test). At times, fuel consumption soared as high as 96.9 m3/100 km. Another way to put this would be that the test would never have got past phase 1 if the first experimental bus had done as badly as the CNG fleet did in regular service. Simply, the fleet didn’t meet the ratio set at the outset.
Of course high consumption means limited range so “CNG buses ran out of fuel while in service and had to be towed back for refueling” (trolleys don’t have this problem and diesels can, in an emergency, be refueled on the road). Because of range problems, over time the CNG buses came to be used more and more as morning and afternoon “extras” so they wouldn’t be pushed to their range limits…to avoid any embarrassment.
The blame for high fuel consumption was put down largely to excessive idling at shift start in winter and refueling spills. I would like to comment briefly on each as follows:
1. Excessive idling in winter…Drivers are paid 10 minutes Pull Out time. Often you only get a bus a few minutes before you are due to leave the yard. I would think 3-6 minutes idling would be about average. This doesn’t explain a 50-100% jump in fuel consumption over phase 1. It also doesn’t explain consumption figures like 80.3 m3/100 km for the fleet in May (1988)…Isn’t May spring?
2. Refuelling spills…No doubt some spills occurred. But consumption figures then would suggest at times as much fuel was spilled as got into the buses on a daily basis. One might expect fuel spills early in the project when staff were becoming familiar with equipment and procedures. But, in fact, consumption tended to rise as the project went along…which means staff would have to have gotten a lot worse with experience rather than better (makes you wonder about the future!).
(Note: Lousy engine performance and/or catastrophic fuel spills might have provided a more plausible explanation for poor results. However, neither of these problems could be or were reported.)
Statements made in the outcome might suggest to some the project was a success: “objectives were met”, “safety record and driver acceptance were excellent”, etc.
The report indicates drivers’ opinions were sought in April and May, 1986. But the fleet conversions were not completed until 1987. The first bus only went into service in December, 1985. So drivers’ opinions were sought very early…I’m certain you wouldn’t have gotten the same opinions a year or so later.
The report indicates the safety record was excellent. But that isn’t the same thing as saying the vehicle is safe. The HSR was lucky no vehicle was involved in a serious accident during the test period. That may say more about the drivers than any inherent quality of the vehicle. I’m sure everyone thought the Hindenburg was safe before it tried that landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey.
The report says the “feasibility of operating CNG transit buses has been established”. But feasibility is not the same thing as desirability. They might have demonstrated a bus could be run on flatulence too but that doesn’t mean you want to do it.
The report continues with “engine tests have shown that the CNG bus has a lower level of particulate emissions than the diesel”. Sounds good, right? But the same tests show the NOx emissions of the CNG engine were almost twice those of the diesel. And CNG unburned hydrocarbons were also significantly higher. It was suggested turbo-charging, sophisticated electronic engine controls and a catalyst might all be needed to clean up the CNG bus. These features may make the bus cleaner but they will also mean the HSR will have to meet exacting maintenance standards to keep them clean…and the HSR has trouble keeping up with maintenance now…
The report attempts to explain away any poor results by pointing out this is an experiment as if real CNG buses will inevitably be better. I’m not convinced. The CNG bus burned too much fuel (even untaxed) to make it cost effective. Its range was limited and it was too dirty to be touted as a clean vehicle. Even with improvements it can’t touch the trolley…And it wasn’t meant to as I already pointed out. So how did this experiment get us to the point where we’re debating whether to dump the trolleys for CNG?
The report only concludes the CNG bus is as good as a diesel. But by 1990-91 most of the time no more than half the CNG fleet was available at any time due to mechanical problems. I don’t think this project has given anyone the justification to incur the capital expense involved in dumping one vehicle technology in favour of another.
The report says the HSR has extensive experience with trolleys. While their experience with CNG buses is not extensive and, at best, appears inconclusive. The report expresses the confidence any shortcomings with the CNG buses can and will be overcome. But strangely the report doesn’t assume any similar effort might be applied to the diesel (or trolley) allowing it to remain competitive.
Since the report doesn’t look at trolleys even though it has become the basis for the move to dump them I’ll make a few observations to conclude:
1. The trolley is inherently clean. I wonder how long the CNG bus will remain clean when the costs of rigorous maintenance prove TOO much for the company?
2. The trolley doesn’t idle so no power is consumed at rest and no emissions are produced.
3. The trolley is well suited to congested traffic…its advantage is greater the worse the congestion.
4. The trolley’s “mileage” is little effected by speed.
5. The trolley saves during braking…A fully regenerative deceleration can recapture about half the kinetic energy in electricity.
6. The trolley saves on oil changes and conventional tune-ups.
7. Optimizing aerodynamics and lowering rolling resistance reduces electrical requirements. Electricity costs run at about 25-40% of the cost of fuelling a vehicle with other fuels.”
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In 1986, when a local lawyer, Alex Pazaratz, took an interest, as an ordinary citizen, in the trolley issue and exposed what appeared to many to be an attempt by HSR management to railroad through a decision to dump the trusty trolleys by 1988 and replace them with untried CNG buses, he may have succeeded in shaming the company into that late fall’s trolley trial but he couldn’t prevent the “inevitable”.
In 1979, the Ministry of Transportation introduced the Transportation Energy Management Program which led to the eventual funding of CNG bus development. And neither the provincial bureaucrats nor the HSR management who were committed to this “pet project” were about to see it die…no matter how indifferent its results. They were anxious to get a fleet of production CNG buses on the road…and killing off the trolley systems in Hamilton and Toronto would create an instant market for more buses and the opportunity to supply both cities with a number of the “rattlers”. It didn’t matter if the CNG buses were unsuitable for use on the trolley routes…diesels could be used there and the CNG buses would be put on the diesel routes they could handle!
Regrettably, instead of being upfront about what they wanted to do, the officials involved tried to suggest there was some logic in getting rid of the trolleys. In 1989, the HSR told the citizens keeping the trolleys would cost them $24 million (the largest part of it for new buses). Then, in January, 1991, Roy Duncan, the HSR’s director of engineering and one of their chief gas bus proponents, told a reporter retaining the electric service would cost $50 million. Finally, in June, 1991, a consultant presented his findings (assembled with the assistance of HSR management) claiming “maintaining existing trolley service (will) cost $192 million…” It didn’t matter if the figures didn’t “add up”…only that they would shock the public into abandoning their support for the mode. Unfortunately from the HSR’s perspective, that didn’t happen. Instead, the company was urged to look into buying used trolleys…an idea they quickly rejected.
During the late 1980s, while various committees and the council voted, on more than one occasion, to retain the trolley system, the HSR only reluctantly replaced the worn overhead on all three routes…dragging their feet selecting a new electric bus…until 1993. At which time, the company finally called for information on new trolleys…to get, as I told several suppliers, the ammunition they needed (in the form of high bids) to shoot the system…which was “interesting” because in July, 1993 the company had to announce that all the converted gas buses would be taken off the road indefinitely. After slightly more than five years of “regular” service, chronic problems rendered the buses, in the opinion of at least one driver, “junk”…those converted GM diesels that Mr. Schweinbenz had promoted as THE solution were spending all their time in the shop. While the trolleys sitting in storage…most of them had traction equipment that had served the company faithfully nearly 40 years.
In 1994, the trolley issue finally tumbled towards a close. First, a couple weeks after New Year’s, it was announced that both Hamilton and Toronto would be getting fleets of low floor CNG buses (to supplement their small numbers of conventional production gas buses) from Ontario Bus Industries at a cost of nearly $400,000 each. Then, in Hamilton, on February 21st, the transportation services committee “short-circuited” the trolleys.
The councilors “rejected buying or renting a fleet of used trolleys…” Then, on Tuesday, March 1st, with a $10 million investment in replaced overhead and a new $1 million power station, the regional councilors voted to kill the trolleys saying henceforth “council…will favor new, sleeker, natural gas-powered buses.” After nearly ten years, several elections and some considerable lobbying, the votes were finally there to bury the citizens’ choice. (Not surprisingly, when one old trolley supporter on council asked that there at least be a public meeting, he was immediately voted down.)
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Epilogue
Following the vote, the HSR made speedy arrangements to pull down the brand-new and largely unused overhead and uproot the supporting poles. During the spring and summer, before the trolleys could become an issue in the fall civic elections and a new council might reconsider their fate, all evidence that Hamilton ever had an electric service disappeared. (Note: Mr. Cooke’s grandson, Terry, was running for Regional Chairman…and won!)
Meanwhile, on the gas front, things took an “interesting” turn. Ontario Bus Industries which had enjoyed a monopoly supplying the first conventional production gas buses and which was to benefit again from the announcement made at the beginning of 1994 managed to get into “difficulty”. In late 1993, the company received a loan of $19 million from the Ontario government and $5 million (US) from New York State to prop it up. Then, in March, 1994, with the company’s “prospects” growing bleaker, the Ontario government took it over. Since then, Ontario’s stake in the faltering enterprise reached $110 million before the province’s left-leaning New Democratic Party government disposed of it, in 1995, in the very last days of its mandate…and for all that money none of the gas buses (which were to start being delivered in the fall of 1994) appeared!
At costs ranging from $264,000 to $550,000 each for new trolleys they were rejected as too expensive. But if OBI had ever managed to supply new gas buses the “real cost” to the taxpayer would easily have been triple(!) the price of the most expensive trolley option.
In Hamilton, in the mid-90s, with the trolleys gone and some of the company’s older diesels nearing the end of their useful life and no certain delivery date for new gas buses, the HSR which rejected used trolleys (saying…”We would prefer to get (buses) in accordance to what we think people want…”) considered acquiring used diesels to replace the units which had to be retired. ASTOUNDING!
And Mr. Schweinbenz who spearheaded the gas attack locally? After falling out of favor with his political bosses, he moved on to a new job at BC Transit…which, interestingly, operates in Vancouver the second largest fleet of trolleys in North America.
By the late-90s, with its customers alienated by ever-increasing fares and reductions in or elimination of the services they want and their numbers spiraling downward in response, the HSR reaped the harvest of putting its priority on a “pet project”. In the hands of bureaucrats…”nothing is ever so bad that it can’t get worse.”
NOTES
1. HSR officials were unwilling to provide any performance data for their Orion V natural gas-fuelled buses. Fortunately, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn’t have the same niggardly attitude. Their figures indicate the NOx emissions of the CNG bus have been substantially reduced to a level below that of the diesel (nearly 40% below). That is their good news. Now for the bad…The same data show the buses require significantly more unscheduled maintenance (about 25% more…they are less reliable, breakdown more often, etc.). They also consume nearly 38% more energy per mile. So even though natural gas is cheaper to buy, the fuel cost per mile is identical to that of the diesel…there is NO saving to retire the substantial purchase price premium of the CNG bus. Just some food for thought…
2. The HSR’s much vaunted, state-of-the-art Orion V buses, with only 3-5 years service under their belts, had to undergo extensive and expensive rebuilding. Corrosion dissolved and/or frozen water burst portions of the vital tube framework that forms the bus. It seems their engineering wasn’t quite what it was purported to be.
3. In 2003, some of those gas buses have now been scheduled for scrapping as they are considered no longer economic to repair…they’ve cost far more and given the citizens less than half the life of some of the “olde” trolleys certain powers couldn’t wait to chuck…
