In the last generation of these buses, 80 percent of the braking power was sometimes lost.
Well - at least they are still under warranty!
Steering woes sideline new buses
William Boei
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
GREATER VANCOUVER - Coast Mountain Bus Co. pulled at least 39 new trolley buses off the road Tuesday because of problems with their power steering, TransLink said.
A TransLink representative said the problem appears to be a software glitch affecting the buses' sophisticated electronics that should be quick and easy to repair.
In the meantime, bus riders on trolley routes may find themselves waiting longer than usual for the next bus.
Many of the New Flyer buses, which were delivered late last year, have problems when they pass couplings in the overhead wires, especially at intersections.
There is a brief moment when the trolleys lose contact with one section of the coupling before they make contact with the next section.
"They go on battery power for that one brief moment," said TransLink's Drew Snider.
"What's happening with the new buses, it's been discovered, is that the power steering sometimes hardens up" after the momentary loss of power, making the buses difficult to steer, Snider said.
"It's under warranty," he added. "New Flyer has sent somebody out here who's going to be in town tonight [Tuesday] and then [this] morning they'll be getting to work on getting this fixed."
Snider said TransLink hopes to have the buses repaired within a day or two, and is looking for other buses that can plug the gaps in service.
TransLink has few spare buses on hand because it hasn't been able to afford to buy enough to keep up with demand.
"We're working on that," Snider said. "We've basically retired a lot of the old trolleys, and the ones that are retired are not fit for service.
"We still have some older trolleys that can go into service, we're trying to pull some diesels in, we're just seeing where we can get some extra resources for this afternoon's rush hour. Right now we don't know, exactly."
Jim Houlahan, a bus driver's union leader, later said Coast Mountain told him 49 buses were eventually taken out of service.
Houlahan, vice-president of CAW Local 111, said Coast Mountain intended to take out only problem buses, but learned Tuesday morning there were many more incidents with the power steering than initially estimated.
Houlahan said the last generation of New Flyer trolley buses had an analogous problem that turned out to be quite serious.
"We would have the electronic brake kick out" after the trolleys passed a coupling. "That electrical change in the bus was causing a malfunction in the logic box that would kick out the electronic-dynamic brakes.
"That took us years to sort out and it was particularly scary because then you were only left with air brakes halfway through a stop, and the electronic brake was intended to do about 80 per cent of your braking," Houlahan said.
He said he hopes TransLink's optimism about a quick fix is well-founded.
"I'm hoping they can fix it in a day or two," he said. "Do I think that's likely or realistic based on my experience? No."
The problem buses were driven to the old Oakridge transit centre, which is still being used for maintenance and pre-delivery checks of newly arrived buses.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=589f1721-69a7-41db-87f7-69b3cb4312e9&k=60123
Trolley trouble
By Jeff Nagel Black Press
Feb 04 2007
All 39 of TransLink’s new electric trolley buses were pulled off the road Tuesday morning after drivers reported problems with their power steering.
The trolleys mainly serve Vancouver and Burnaby routes, but Coast Mountain Bus Co. is reallocating some diesel buses from other areas, meaning the trolley trouble may intensify the acute bus shortage that’s already causing delays and crowding for passengers across the region.
Officials said the glitch may be software-related and seemed to happen as a trolley’s power connection crosses insulator couplings at intersections, causing a momentary loss in power steering control.
“No one was hurt and there were no accidents,” said TransLink spokesperson Drew Snider, adding the trolleys are under warranty from supplier New Flyer Industries of Winnipeg.
Snider said it’s hoped the problem will be fixed quickly.
The new trolleys, which started to arrive last summer, were the leading edge of a $273 million order to buy 228 trolleys to replace the entire 20-year-old fleet.
It’s the second problem with New Flyer vehicles lately. In December, Coast Mountain decided new buses that had been arriving couldn’t carry bikes on their front racks after dark, because the racks block the headlights.
http://www.tricitynews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=74&cat=23&id=825417&more=
