Railless Electric Traction Company

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Railless Electric Traction Company

logo
legal form Limited Company
founding 1908
resolution 1926
Reason for dissolution liquidated by Short Brothers
Seat London , UKUnited KingdomUnited Kingdom 
Branch Trolleybus construction

Railless Electric Traction Company Ltd. was a 1909 for the construction of trolley bus based systems company with headquarters in London and branch office in Leeds. The company existed under a new name until 1926, before the business was completely given up.

history

Railless Electric Traction Company Ltd. was founded with the aim of marketing the trackless tram  "trackless streetcar", later referred to as the trolleybus , in England. The company held the English license for the Max Schiemann system . The first trolleybus systems were sold to Leeds and Bradford .

Railless Electric Traction acted as general contractor for the trolleybus systems, which were marketed under the name RET System . The production of the vehicles was subcontracted to other companies in the three assemblies chassis , body and electrical equipment. The chassis for the Leeds wagons came from Alldays & Onions , the superstructures from Hurst Nelson and the electrical equipment from Dick, Kerr & Co. Later wagons with superstructures from Charles H. Roe or Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies were also supplied. All assemblies were delivered to Leeds, where they were assembled into the ready-to-use vehicles and handed over to the customers after a test drive in Leeds.

The outbreak of World War I affected the construction of more trolleybus systems in England because many of the pieces of equipment used in the first vehicles were made to German drawings or imported from Germany, which violated the trade law with the enemy and prevented the company from already entering into it Could carry out orders. In addition, the first cars sold by Railless Electric Traction were unreliable, so the system operator in Bradford wanted to replace the first cars delivered in 1913 with new ones. He could not agree with Railless Electric Traction on a price reduction for repairs that he had already carried out himself, which is why the following cars were ordered from other companies. This led to the company's bankruptcy in 1916 , even though Railless Electric Traction had received orders to manufacture ammunition during the First World War .

Revitalization after bankruptcy

Short Brothers bought the company from the creditors and revived it in the spring of 1918 under the name Railless Ltd. or RET Company Ltd. , later also Railless Electric Traction Construction Co. Ltd. Charles H. Roe had already left the company a year earlier and started his own business. He had worked for Railless Electric Traction since 1913 and had introduced some improvements to the vehicles. Shortly afterwards the company was requisitioned by the Royal Flying Corps , presumably for the production of aircraft parts, but it was returned shortly after the war. The company's outdated trolleybus technology eventually prompted Shorts to give up the business and close the company.

technology

The trolleybus systems built by Railless Electric Traction based on the Max Schiemann system used a double-pole contact line , which consisted of two contact wires running next to each other. Current collector poles were arranged on the vehicles , which coated the catenary wires from below. The electrical equipment was provided by Siemens & Halske .

Similar to the tram cars of that time , the cars were equipped with travel switches that were operated with a hand crank that the car driver had to operate in addition to the steering . Some had a driver's brake valve similar to a tram , while others were already equipped with a brake pedal . After the First World War, other manufacturers introduced cars with a drive switch that could be operated using a pedal. As a result, Railless Electric Traction's vehicles were clumsy compared to the competition.

In addition to trolleybuses, the company designed and possibly built superstructures for vans and trucks .

Trolleybus systems

Railless Electric Traction and its successor companies built the trolleybus systems below. The list is sorted according to the year of operation, which is indicated in brackets:

Great Britain

South Africa

Web links

Commons : Railless Electric Traction Company  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files