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本帖最后由 jason 于 2013-5-10 22:14 编辑
After almost seven years of suspension, the most romantic trolley route in Hangzhou, route 155, will resurrect on Friday May 10th with a brand new fleet of Jinhua Young MAN Neoplan JNP6120BEV1 trolleys.
Route 155 first borned as route 55 on September 28th, 1989. The original route 55 was from Kaiyuan Road near the famous lakefront of Hangzhou Xi-hu (West Lake) national scenic resort, to He-mu-xin-cun (Harmony Estate). Later on Hangzhou trolley route numbers were incremented by 100 so that route 55 became route 155, and the route was consequently extended from Harmony Estate to Hangzhou North Long Distance Bus Station, and the downtown terminus was also extended from Kaiyuan Road to Drum Tower and later on to Hangzhou Rail-way Station (also known as the City Station by the locals).
When air-conditioned trolleys were added to Hangzhou's trolley fleet, a prefix "K" was added on their destination signs. The LED destination sign displayed "K155" in calculator font which visually resembled the word "KISS", and thus became the most romantic bus route in Hangzhou.
In 2006 Hangzhou entered a frantic era of subway construction, many roads were closed off as construction progressed, and that included the most prestigious commercial street, Yan-an Road, which at its peak saw four trolley routes, 151, 155, 157, and premium trolley route K555. 157 was a counter-clock wise uni-directional circular trolley route utilizing all existing wires, it was never a heavily patronized route, and it was short lived. 151 was diverted to a different street and became the only surving trolley route till this day. As for K555, it was the first trolley route in China to utilize an exclusive fleet of acclimatized trolley coaches, therefore it was also the first premium trolley service in China. Contemporary to the birth of K555, Hangzhou's next door neighbor Shanghai was still using air-conditioned diesel buses to supplement the money making premium services on trolley routes. Facing with the need to divert from Yan-an Road, for several years, Hangzhou Public Transit Undertaking made an effort to keep K555 running by suspending long stretches of new overhead on roads that never saw trolley services before. The K555 even crossed the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal twice (a major water way contructed in Sui Dynasty 1500 years ago which is still an important navigation and irrigation channel today), only 151 crossed the canal before K555 did so. Nevertheless, K555 was first dieselized due to traffic rearrangement that affected other portions of the route and then completely eliminated. As for 155, the last day of revenue service was August 7th, 2006, there was no diesel substitute, the route simply vanished.
Three trolley routes prevailed after the suspension of 155; 159 and 290 serving city's west end, and the long north-south cross town route 151 which was also the original trolley route from 1961. When the west end trolley corridor Wensan Road went into construction (forgot which year), it was rezoned for one-way westbound traffic, but with a counter-flow bus lane. Hangzhou Transit Undertaking went ahead to resuspend wires during the closing stage of the road construction, but a municipal government mandate to "eliminate visual pollution" abruptly forced the termination of the work and dismemberment of half suspended overhead. Route 159 was forcibly closed, and route 290 switched to hybrid buses. As 151 stood as the solo trolley route for many years, the future of Hangzhou's trolley service looked bleak, many believed that the system was heading toward inevitable demise.
As Hangzhou's first subway went into revenue operation on November 24th, 2012, the construction on surface roads including Yan-an Road was also finishing up rapidly. Rumors have long been circulating that Hangzhou Transit Undertaking was buying 30 new trolleys similar in design to Beijing's fleet from Jinhua Neoplan. Hangzhou's version was equiped with powerful lithium-ion batteries for off wire operation. In fact back in 2008, Hangzhou has been testing a rechargeable lithium-ion battery trolley (see my Yahoo Trolleybus posting #11587) on route 188/K188, a limited stop version of 155.
Until January 2013, it was not clear if the new Young-MAN trolleys would be assigned to the solo route 151 or for resurrection of a former trolley route. It only became clear in March that Hangzhou was to bring back the "KISS" trolley. In April 2013, all motor buses formerly utilizing Yan-an Road have resumed operation. As for the "KISS" trolley, she will also be operating wirelessly through Yan-an Road as the street has been designated as "visual pollution free" street. Hangzhou Transit has been working frantically during the past month examining wires that haven't seen any use for 7 years to make sure they are in proper working conditions, installing wire capturing troughs, and conducting driver training. The "KISS" trolley will be running from Harmony Estate, two stops shy of Hangzhou North Long Distance Bus Station, to Hangzhou Rail-way Station (City Station). The new fleet number will be 6-5800 series, the 6-5700 series (OEM air-conditioned trolleys with Flxible body), and 6-5500 series (retrofit air-conditioned trolleys with Flxible body) will continue to operate on 151 for a while.
Because of the off-wire capability, the Young-MAN trolleys are officially catagorized as electric vehicle, not in the traditional sense as trolley-bus. It is believed that such catagoriztion helps to secure government financial incentives for "new energy buses", but in any case the resurrection of the "KISS" in the form of trolley is far more joyous than any other form of so called "new energy buses". |
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发表于 2013-5-10 10:27
楼主
发表于 2013-5-10 23:21
