by Wolfgang Auer
For the benefit of people not understanding
German, I've tried to
translate as much of the article as possible. Boy, this was a
hard issue!
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***Electric equipment for the articulated
trolleybus MB O405 G HCE for
Quito/Ecuador***
The electrically propelled bus (trolleybus)
is -- especially in a
metropolis like Quito, which is situated 2850m (9500') above sea
level
and suffers from heavy pollution -- a user-friendly mean of transit,
that is environmentally compatible and hence promising. In 1995,
Municipio del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito (MDMQ) -- the transit
authorities of Quito -- has decided to construct a new trolleybus
system of about 23km (14mi).
Mercedes-Benz has delivered the chassis
and Hispano Carrocera the
coach body of the 54 articulated buses.
The electric traction equipment was developped
and manufactured by
Kiepe, taking advantage of modern components of high-voltage electronics.
The well-proven, ummm, direct pulse converter(?)
(DPC), using GCS
technique (gate-controlled switches), supported by a rugged and
maintainance-free three-phase-current induction motor, is setting
a
standard in regard to reliability and power consumption, and allows
the unflappable climbing of inclines of up to 15.7% (1 in 6.4)
in Quito.
Unfortunately, the remnant of the article is too hard a nut...
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>The German's don't always use the term "O-bus".
Indeed! Swiss people tend to exclusively
use "Trolleybus", while in
the rest of the German speaking world, Obus (sometimes also written
"O-Bus") is used alternating with Trolleybus. There
never has been a
term people somehow fell in love with, unlike "filobus"
in Italy or
"trådbuss" in Norway and Sweden, e. g.; the "Oberleitungsomnibus"
("overhead wire omnibus"), which "Obus" is
derived from, is much too
long to use is stringently. It's a linguistic beast similar to
the
term "U-Bahn", derived from "Untergrundbahn"
("subway" in the North
American meaning). And by the way, the quaint term "Gleislose"
("trackless [trolley]") is much too ancient to be understood
by people
not spending time with such weird issues like trolleybus history
;-)
So, as "Stangenstromabnehmer" is another overlength
term for what we
also refer to as "Trolley", "Trolleybus" is
the rather rare example of
a very good foreign word.
Quito drivers use poles with hooks to adjust the trolleypoles when needed. I saw them do it in 1996. Allen Morrison.
This
page last updated 13 FE 2000
