Conductors also had to remember to attend to the
trolley pole at the terminus, as forgetting to do so was disastrous, with the pole colliding with oncoming trams in an electric flash that would sever the wire and bring the service to a sudden halt.
If I got more than fourteen feet from under my overhead wires in either direction, the
trolley poles came off.
When a trolley was in trouble they called us and we would go and repair any broken wires that came down or refit the trolley bus head that often came off the end of the
trolley poles.
Importantly, Semsel's book goes beyond streetcar assembly, discussing (and illustrating through photography) the various components and systems that combined to make trolleys:
trolley poles, braking and controlling systems, couplers, gears, fare boxes, and more.
However,
trolley poles and overhead cables soon became the standard method of collecting the current It is Birkenhead that is credited with the first proper street tram system in Europe when an American - Francis George Train - inaugurated a service between Woodside and Birkenhead Park in 1860.
Odysseus The A62 between Slaithwaite and Marsden has had rusting old
trolley poles for years.
Again, thanks to all the tram-oraks who poked their
trolley poles into the depot for this one.
* POLES APART: One of the hazards of trolleybus operation was the
trolley poles detaching from the overhead power lines, bringing the vehicle to a halt.