Trolleybus System
Trolleybus service in Edmonton started on September 24, 1939, operating on route 5 from 101 St/Jasper Ave to 95 St/111 Ave. By the end of October of that year, service had started on another route running to 99 St/Whyte Ave via the Low Level Bridge. In Edmonton, trolley buses were often referred to simply as "trolleys".
The trolleybus system used a mixture of Ohio Brass and K&M Elastic (Swiss) suspension for holding up the overhead wires.
The 49 vehicles remaining in use in 2008 were from an order of 100 manufactured in 1981-2 by Brown Boveri & Company (BBC), using bodies and chassis supplied to BBC by GM.
On June 18, 2008, city council voted 7 to 6 in favour of phasing out the trolley system in 2009 and 2010. However, city council decided in April 2009 that trolley bus service would be discontinued earlier than originally planned, in order to reduce the city's expected $35 million deficit in 2009. The last day of regular service was May 2, 2009.
In 2008, a low-floor model of trolley was leased from Coast Mountain Bus Company, Vancouver's bus operating company, for testing of possible benefits of low-floor trolleys over hybrid diesel buses. During its time in Edmonton the bus was numbered 6000, but was returned to its original #2242 when returned to Vancouver.
Read more about this topic: Edmonton Transit System
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