There's a NEW type of railway system that's on trial in Coventry City Centre. Called 'VLR' it stands for Very Light Rail, and is a cheaper, lighter and quick...
The cars/trams are also small enough that the wires would be low enough to be a problem. I assume they share the road where trucks are allowed to be a certain height. Also assuming this is mostly in cities, you just can’t put overhead wires in all places with low effort.
Catenaries can stretch up pretty high. This is a bit of gadgetbahn trickery, using batteries shifts cost from up-front capital improvement projects to operating and maintenance cost (managing vehicle charge levels and replacing batteries) and it eliminates one avenue for opponents of new transit to criticize (unsightly wires ruining the anesthetic of our beautiful car-choked city). It is a technically worse solution, but it’s a relatively mild departure from trains/trams as far as gadgetbahns go, and if they can leverage the novelty and the political benefits to build more transit to serve more people than they otherwise would have, good for them. Time will tell if this approach pays off, the world is littered with failed gadgetbahns, but also sprinkled with a few success stories
I would also add that if this proves to be successful, having a second generation that (can) run on catenary isn’t out of the question. Even for parts of routes this might be an option, still having the flexibility of batteries for the areas or something?
It certainly is faster to get up and running this way. We’ll see I guess…
The cars/trams are also small enough that the wires would be low enough to be a problem. I assume they share the road where trucks are allowed to be a certain height. Also assuming this is mostly in cities, you just can’t put overhead wires in all places with low effort.
Catenaries can stretch up pretty high. This is a bit of gadgetbahn trickery, using batteries shifts cost from up-front capital improvement projects to operating and maintenance cost (managing vehicle charge levels and replacing batteries) and it eliminates one avenue for opponents of new transit to criticize (unsightly wires ruining the anesthetic of our beautiful car-choked city). It is a technically worse solution, but it’s a relatively mild departure from trains/trams as far as gadgetbahns go, and if they can leverage the novelty and the political benefits to build more transit to serve more people than they otherwise would have, good for them. Time will tell if this approach pays off, the world is littered with failed gadgetbahns, but also sprinkled with a few success stories
I would also add that if this proves to be successful, having a second generation that (can) run on catenary isn’t out of the question. Even for parts of routes this might be an option, still having the flexibility of batteries for the areas or something?
It certainly is faster to get up and running this way. We’ll see I guess…