Dinner anyone?

[Mal Rowe]

Next Thursday is the 3rd in the month so some of us will be at the Royal
Exchange hotel near QV market in Melbourne.

You would be welcome to join us - around 6pm.

If you want a project for the night, you might look for the 'helpful
advice' signs that are blossoming around the Melbourne tram system.

Mal Rowe attaching an example

[Andrew Highriser]

I haven't noticed that sign before. A good notice, Mal. 

Melbourne's tramway overhead electrical  wiring design department has a long and proudly held tradition of putting overhead insulators in the most awkward location for tram drivers. Never mind the bother of frustrated tram drivers having to start off then immediately cut power, having to semi emergency brake for a miscreant motorist and being stuck on an insulator, fuming motorists facing blocked intersections by stuck trams and delayed passengers, the proud history goes on well into the first quarter of the 21st century.

While up until the late 20th century, a following tram could simply push the stuck tram forward a few centimetres to pick up power, or a few able bodied passengers push the tram a couple of centimetres, this simple task turned into a job for a breakdown crew.

Overhead wire insulators don't need to be precisely placed. That can be metre or two in either direction and not cause such issues. Difficulties for tram drivers are never a consideration. 

Andrew. 

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[David McLoughlin]

Andrew wrote:

> Melbourne's tramway overhead electrical  wiring design department has a long and proudly held tradition of putting overhead insulators in the most awkward location for tram drivers.

Does Melbourne not use "power-through" section isolators?

In the years immediately before the wanton, criminal destruction of Wellington's modern trolleybus system at Halloween in 2017,  most of the system's overhead wire network was replaced (at huge cost to the public) with new K&M equipment. This included replacing the old "coast-through" section isolators with "power-through" isolators, which made driving much easier through such special work.

I suppose I assumed similar isolators existed for tram overhead, considering they would be half as complex as for trolleybus overhead.

dmcl.

[Andrew Highriser]

I believe there are a few places in Melbourne where they are used, and I don't understand the reasoning as to why, or why not.

I do remember Wellington from TDU. What a waste of money., 

Andrew. 

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[Richard Youl]

I suspect that the overhead line workers don’t like bridging section insulators because they could briefly connect 600 V to the line they are working on when a pantograph is connecting both sections together in the event that a tram might enter the dead zone. 

In the past, tower wagon workers thought nothing of working on live overhead. That seems to be no longer the case.

Certainly on the Gold Coast, last I heard was that not only do they want the section they are working on to be dead and connected to Earth (the rails), but also one, possibly two sections on either side of that to be dead and Earthed also. That is almost enough to close the entire system.

Richard

On 22 Mar 2025, at 9:20 pm, Andrew Highriser <andrewhi...@gmail.com> wrote:



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