Re: B2 Failure 09/04

[David McLoughlin <davemcl@REMOVEiprolink.co.nz>]

Chris Sinnema wrote:
> 
> The overhead is never de-energised when repair work is done. There is no need as
> the tramway workers are fully insulated, it is quite safe to touch the overhead,
> just dont try it though when it comes down, sparks fly everywhere.


I have watched on various occasions the tower-wagon crews working on the
trolleybus overhead in Wellington. Like Melbourne's tram overhead crews,
they also work on live wires. The trolleybuses keep sailing past as they
fix faults, repair switches, put in new insulators and so on. Yet with
trolleybus overhead there are two wires, phase and neutral rather than
just the phase wire of a tram system. Surely if the trolleybus wire crew
touched both wires at once, they would cause a huge BOOM ??   But this
doesn't seem to happen. They work quite happily seemingly touching both
wires at once, and standing up right in the centre of the two wires at
times.

Can anyone explain how they get away with it? It is a mystery to me, as
our ordinary electricity grid linesmen sometimes, sadly, get
electrocuted by touching ordinary power lines, yet the trolleybus
linesmen seem to touch the trolleybus wires with impunity.

David McLoughlin
Auckland New Zealand