Trolley power line breaks in 1400 block of West Broadway—again
A taxicab maneuvers around a freshly-downed trolley line, potentially charged with 600 volts of direct current.
Just before noon today (April 17)—and for the second time in two weeks—a bright flash and a shower of sparks signaled that a trolley bus in the westbound lane of the 1400 block of West Broadway Avenue had pulled down one of its two overhead trolley lines.
There were no mishaps fortunately but there was also no way to tell at a glance which of the two overhead trolley lines had come down: the un-powered grounding wire or its mate, which carries something like 600 volts of direct electrical current.
The person behind the wheel of this sedan ended up driving over the power line after they were unable to maneuver between it and the median.
Response was quick: between five and ten minutes for a transit supervisor to take charge of the scene and another 12 minutes on top of that for one of Coast Mountain Bus Company’s Trolley Overhead crews to show up and repair the damage.
However, in the minutes before the first transit supervisor arrived and coned-off the two lanes covered by the fallen trolley line, motorists were literally at potential risk of electrocution as they chose their own way around (and sometimes over) the looping obstruction.
Not only is this the second time in two weeks that a trolley bus has pulled down one of its two overhead lines at this exact location but this was actually the second time today that transit supervisors and a Trolley Overhead crew had to respond to the 1400 block of West Broadway to deal with a trolley bus and the overhead trolley lines.
A trolley bus at 8:07 a.m.—its poles akimbo—one attached to an overhead line and one not.
Closer to the eastern end of the 1400 block of West Broadway, the main overhead trolley line above the curb lane forks to add a line above the median lane, so that trolley buses can turn south onto Granville Street.
At 8 a.m. a westbound trolley using the curbside overhead lines was seriously discombobulated in the middle of the block when one of its two poles connecting to the power lines came swinging free in a spectacular shower of sparks.
A morning of trolley follies along West (and East) Broadway
Two transit supervisors using an orange pole to try to dislodge the yellow pole.
The driver of the bus promptly disembarked all passengers and within 30 minutes two transit supervisors arrived. The pair coned-off a generous, two lane-wide, area around the bus, nudged it forward to better line up the power poles and then vainly tried to dislodge the one pole connecting the bus to an overhead line.
At the same time as this was happening in the 1400 block, TransLink, the transportation authority responsible for Transit across much of Metro Vancouver, was explaining on Twitter that there was a trolley system power outage affecting all of Broadway Avenue between Hemlock Street, in the west, all the way to Main Street in East Van.
The scene at 8:55 a.m. as the Trolley Overhead maintenance truck, beside the bus, prepares to leave.
I don’t know about the wider power outage but the problems with the trolley bus and curbside trolley lines in the 1400 block were finally taken care of by a crew from Trolley Overhead, in one of their their distinctive maintenance trucks, with the non-conducting, wooden roof platform, By 9 a.m. this crew was done and on their way.
The Overhead Trolley maintenance crew are back on the scene at 12:13 p.m.
Less than three hours later, however, another crew from Trolley Overhead had to return to the 1400 block—this time to repair the complete break in the forked set of trolley lines over the westbound median lane.
A member of the Trolley The Overhead Trolley crew begin fixing the the trolley line break at 12:13 a.m.
It has only been about two weeks since the last time that the trolley lines above the westbound median lane of West Broadway broke—seemingly in the exact same place as today.
Similarly, it is not at all uncommon to see trolley buses lose their contact with the trolley lines over the curb lane, exactly where it happened this morning.
The “Power Off” sign beside the trolley lines in the centre of the north side of the 1400 block of West Broadway.
This afternoon a bus driver was just beginning to suggest one reason why trolley buses may keep losing contact at the same spot of the curbside trolley lines when the bus he was shifted to take over arrived and he had to cut his explanation short.
He did have time to tell me that the two trolley line maintenance issues in the 1400 block today were entirely independent of each other and coincidental, as was the proximity of “Power Off” signs on both the south side (eastbound) and north side (westbound) overhead trolley lines in the middle of the 1400 block of West Broadway.
The other mysterious “Power Off” sign, which is attached to the overhead trolley lines on the south side of the 1400 block.
I hod gotten the idea that the signs might be connected with today’s trolley line problems because of the Wikipedia entry on trolley buses. Part of the entry details how trolley buses switch from one overhead line onto another—by employing a “power-on/power-off” switch—activated if the bus is drawing power (by accelerating) and not activated if the bus is coasting and not drawing power.
The entry specifies that trolley buses here in Vancouver include a driver-operated power-on/power-off override to open or close the overhead trolley line switch, regardless of whether the bus is drawing current or not.
However, the “Power Off” signs in the 1400 block of West Broadway have nothing to do with line switching.
To keep power outages from taking down the entire, city-wide, trolley system, electricity is supplied in a system of independent grid squares. The Power Off signs, the bus driver explained, mark an insulated boundary line between two grid squares.
Only the lines flowing with 600 volts of direct current needs to be insulated and, on both sides of the street, only the line on the left side of the direction of travel has a notably large doo-dad, which is one style of trolley wire section insulator.
So, shockingly, we may actually have learned something from today’s trolley line failures in the 1400 block of West Broadway—namely, which of the two overhead trolley lines is hot and which is not! Click the images to enlarge them.
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