Advantages and Modern Usage
The bow collector has fewer moving parts than the trolley pole, but is heavier and sometimes more complicated to construct. The construction of overhead wires for bow collectors is simpler than trolley pole wiring. As bow collectors do not have revolving mountings, the collector cannot jump off the wire or follow the wrong one at intersections, as trolley poles sometimes do. Thus overhead 'frogs' and guides for trolley poles are not necessary with bow collectors. Bow collectors are, however, much noisier than trolley poles.
The overhead wires for bow collectors are stretched tighter than for trolley poles, and straight sections are 'staggered', that is, the wire does not run completely straight down the centreline of the track, but rather zig-zags slightly across a small distance. This distributes wear across the bow collector's collector plate, and extends the collector's life.
In addition to some vintage tramways, bow collectors are still used in some tram systems in the former Soviet Union, e. g., in Kazan, Minsk, and Dzerzhinsk. They are also used by the Snaefell Mountain Railway on the Isle of Man.
|
Read more about this topic: Bow Collector
Famous quotes containing the words advantages, modern and/or usage:
“The respect for human rights is one of the most significant advantages of a free and democratic nation in the peaceful struggle for influence, and we should use this good weapon as effectively as possible.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“I tell you, sir, the only safeguard of order and discipline in the modern world is a standardized worker with interchangeable parts. That would solve the entire problem of management.”
—Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)