The Crystal Palace Bus Charger – 19th September 2023
I went to see the new charger at Crystal Palace for the new Irizar ie trams that will be introduced on route 358.
I took these pictures.
Note.
- It is not finished yet or someone has nicked the pantograph.
- Irizar seem to make their own chargers.
- It looks a well-designed installation.
This Spanish video shows the bus inside and outside.
I have a few thoughts.
The Specification Of The Bus
This document on the Irizar web site is the specification of the ie trams, that London are buying.
Passenger Capacity
According to the specification, these twelve metre long buses have a capacity of 97-99 passengers, with 21-28 seated, depending on layout.
Is that a bit tight? Especially, if people are carrying large cases.
Climbing Anerley Hill
I wonder how these buses will manage to climb Anerley Hill.
- This page on a cycling blog, rates the hill as the fourth stiffest in London.
- A typical Wrightbus or AlexanderDennis single-decker diesel bus has a kerb weight of 13-14 tonnes.
- The ie tram gives maximum front and rear axle loadings which total 21.2 tonnes. But that includes the passengers, which at 60 Kg each account for a lot of the difference in weight with the diesel buses.
- Anerley Hill has a rise of upwards of 30 metres.
Using Omni’s Potential Energy Calculator gives a figure of less than 2 KWh of energy needed to get up the hill.
That should be possible!
News Of The Bus
But there has been very little news on the Internet of these buses and their chargers, with the last story dated a year ago. Given Sadiq Khan’s love of publicity, does that mean anything?
Conclusion
It seems that Irizar have pulled out all the stops in the design of this bus.
The Anonymous Widower 
Those green buildings will be the DNO substation to power the charging kit so quite a bit of land take requited and cost for infrastructure and presumably one down at Orpington bus garage as well. Guess teh advantage here is less buses are needed as they can stay out all day. There was a trial route between Dartford and Bluewater about 5 years a go and the panto was on top of the bus on that one. Personally i don’t like the styling and bet their drivers don’t either.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | September 29, 2023 |
A friend of mine, who used to run a London bus concession feels that London’s power network is not up to electric buses.
By showing him the Wrightbus web site, I convinced him hydrogen would be better. But for some reason SadIQ is against hydrogen.
Comment by AnonW | September 29, 2023 |
I was up there today, and took some shots. Seems like rather nifty kit! “600kW” is more than half a million watts!
This video (which you’ve likely already seen) shows it in operation at Bexlyheath Garage:
Comment by Andrew Hamm | December 15, 2023 |