End of Trolley buses in Moscow

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From the Railway Gazette - not actually a railway topic though

RUSSIA: Moscow’s last six trolleybus services have ended, with five routes switching to diesel operation on August 25 and one route to battery buses.

The city’s first trolleybus ran in November 1933, with the system reaching 80 routes totalling 1 300 km operated by 1 700 vehicles at its peak. The system remained the largest in the world until 2015, but it has been in steady retrenchment since 2014.

The majority of the former trolleybus services are now operated with diesel buses, with more than 8 000 serving more than 950 routes. However, the city expects to increase its electric bus fleet from 342 to 600 by the end of 2020 and to 2 600 in 2024.

Some historic trolleybuses will be used to take visitors to an urban transport museum which is under construction in the northeast of the city

But should we bring them back in Bath, Bristol or Bournemouth?

[Bmblbzzz]

Slightly sad, but that's probably irrational.

[broadgage]

A backward step in my view.
Trolleybuses produce no pollution at the point of use, and reduced total pollution if compared to diesel power.
And whilst some of the trolleybuses are to be replaced by battery buses, the great majority are diesel.

I can see the merits of fitting batteries to trolley buses so as to allow limited operation away from the overhead, but to close an existing trolleybus network seems a very poor choice.

[Reading General]

Agreed. It would have probably been better to keep a core grid of lines on the busiest corridors and have dynamic charging trolleybuses.


As for the other places, in Bournemouth, dynamic charging trolleys would be very suitable on a wired main corridor between Christchurch, Boscombe, Bournemouth, Branksome and Poole. Bristol would benefit more from trams, at least on a couple of corridors. Bath is an exception because its picturesque and although its size doesn't quite warrant them, it would be worth spending more on dynamic charging trams which would be a better application to preserve certain views in the centre.