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King County Metro - Seattle, Washington


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2 hours ago, Atomic Taco said:

http://metro.kingcounty.gov/up/rr/m-trolley.html

Seems they're running diesels on every route nearly every weekend.  It made sense when none of the fleet had EPUs and I'm not sure why it happens now.

That's pretty strange - I can understand having some routes for construction in various areas, but every single route? Why? Especially with the current fleet where they can skip sections that have issues.

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For several years now Metro has turned off several substations for weekend construction at 03:00 Saturday morning just about every weekend.  Holidays were the usual exceptions.  This shakeup the weekend run cards for routes 3 (4), 10, 12, 36 and 47 are written for pull out from Ryerson Base and include ten additional minutes of travel time.  Route 1 and 2 coaches come from Central Base but pulling coaches out of Central doesn't require additional time.      

Metro is concerned about battery life and replacement cost (I have heard upwards of $40K for replacement).  Operators are discouraged from using Energy Storage System operation and are penalized for unauthorized use.  If they dewire they are required to put poles back up as soon as it is safe to do so.  

 

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The 1100s aren't finished.  They are stored for now and will be around until September according to the current plan.  1187 went to East Base on Friday for shop work, probably tires.

They towed 3680 away and then had to bring it back to North Base--they didn't drain the fuel tank.

Quote

 

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Hah, interesting.  So the "era" continues.  I'm kind of chuckling to myself.  My fiddling with the wiki is futile and kind of stupid especially since it's so awkward and time consuming for me as an "elderly person" with no tech skills to struggle with the language.  

I'll move both the 1100s and the 3600s back to the active section and leave it to others more "in the know" to adjust the wiki page going forward. 

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On 4/12/2020 at 8:39 PM, Atomic Taco said:

http://metro.kingcounty.gov/up/rr/m-trolley.html

Seems they're running diesels on every route nearly every weekend.  It made sense when none of the fleet had EPUs and I'm not sure why it happens now.

I seem to remember when the evaluation of the fleet renewal took place, Metro claimed that equipping the new trolleybuses with auxiliary batteries would mean the end of weekend dieselisation.

 

18 hours ago, coordinator47 said:

For several years now Metro has turned off several substations for weekend construction at 03:00 Saturday morning just about every weekend.  Holidays were the usual exceptions.  This shakeup the weekend run cards for routes 3 (4), 10, 12, 36 and 47 are written for pull out from Ryerson Base and include ten additional minutes of travel time.  Route 1 and 2 coaches come from Central Base but pulling coaches out of Central doesn't require additional time.      

Metro is concerned about battery life and replacement cost (I have heard upwards of $40K for replacement).  Operators are discouraged from using Energy Storage System operation and are penalized for unauthorized use.  If they dewire they are required to put poles back up as soon as it is safe to do so.  

 

Concern about the battery replacement cost is ridiculous. It's probably less the 4% of the total cost of the bus. It was specified by the procurement team to be used- if you don't want to use it, why spend the extra money in the first place? If you follow this logic why not curb diesel bus mileages to avoid expensive mid-life overhauls, drivetrain replacement etc?

I hadn't realised about the complete switch off of the substations. It seems that at heart the diesel mafia still run the show. 

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Sad to hear. Honestly it's pretty disappointing that an agency that claims to want to be zero-emission by 2040 still can't figure out how to run a trolleybus on a weekend. In Vancouver, the trolleybus system is far from perfect, but at a minimum it runs 7 days a week and (I think) all trolley routes are part of the Frequent Transit Network, which is 15 minutes or better for some number of hours a day, 7 days a week.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was just looking at the list of KCM routes, and from that I was wondering:

Are the night-owl routes that would normally be trolleys (like the 36, 44, 3, etc.) operated with trolleys during the night owl period or with hybrids? I've never checked Pantograph that late, so I was just wondering. I assume it becomes hybrids, but I could be wrong ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/26/2020 at 10:27 PM, Zortan said:

Are the night-owl routes that would normally be trolleys (like the 36, 44, 3, etc.)

Yes they are, I've seen on OneBusAway that the 3, 7, 36, 43, and 49 are regular Trolleybus routes at Night (Mon-Fri), On weekends is when it becomes all Hybrids. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just looking on Pantograph today, and I noticed a couple things. First, a bunch of trolley routes are diesel right now. I'm not in the city at the moment, so it could be construction downtown, but does anyone know the cause? The 44 has also been operating with 40-footers instead of the 60s.

Second, I've seen quite a few regular XDE60s on RapidRide routes, especially today and yesterday. This is mainly F line but the A as well (and I'm sure others I didn't notice). There was also a RapidRide on the 7 on Saturday I believe. Anyone have an explanation for the elevated concentration of regular 60-footers on RapidRide these past few days?

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A couple photos of ex-Metro units that are now part of the Busboys collection. (The Holter family in MN) I took these last week when I stopped by their lot while out for a leisure drive.

49937588277_3d6fd324ed_t.jpg  49937282131_e54176ba25_t.jpg  49936769198_7943e09bc1_t.jpg

If anyone has more info or the correct info on these please share. I'm just going off the Wiki lists for details.

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On 5/25/2020 at 9:57 PM, Zortan said:

Second, I've seen quite a few regular XDE60s on RapidRide routes, especially today and yesterday. This is mainly F line but the A as well (and I'm sure others I didn't notice). There was also a RapidRide on the 7 on Saturday I believe. Anyone have an explanation for the elevated concentration of regular 60-footers on RapidRide these past few days?

Could be Fleet Shortages, Maintenance or Cleaning & Sanitizing of buses, a whole lot of the XDE60s are being put on other Trolley Routes that require 40-ft buses in order for people who are riding those vehicles to maintain social distancing during the Pandemic. 

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  • 2 months later...

Had a very strange experience riding the 204 today. Got on at the South Mercer Island Shopping Center, and the bus sign read 635 Angle Lake Station. Unfortunately it was just a regular 204 LOL but still funny to see. Seems like we ended up with a Des Moines Liberty for some reason.

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1 minute ago, Atomic Taco said:

I'm surprised that sign code is programmed into Metro's fleet as the 635 is subcontracted

So is the 204, I believe. I think they just don't program the same signs across the different community shuttle bases.

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