- Location
- Boom-town-on-Thames
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The bus as we know it is arguably the most fundamental aspect of modern public transport. They are incredibly flexible, have minimal special infrastructure requirements and are comparatively cheap to build and operate. Their chief alternatives, the tram and the trolleybus (and the interurban, for leftpondians), were chiefly electric; better for air and noise pollution, but more expensive and reliant on special infrastructure. After WWII, with the rise of the car, the bus – with its common infrastructure – came to dominate.
But what if it didn't?
*
In Busless World, or at least this particular iteration of it, Catenary is King. The train, the tram and the trolleybus are common sights in cities the world over, and so is the tangle of overhead wires that comes with them. Knowing exactly what is a tram, a train or a trolleybus can be a bit difficult, but we'll come to that.
Let's start our journey as many others do; in one of the vast car-parks that dot the city's edgelands. At first glance one could be forgiven in mistaking it for a retail park from our world, delineated by the familiar boxy shapes of retail units; but this car-park is, if anything, too big. And I've never seen a retail park in our world with such a dizzying array of wires suspended over the entrance.
As we watch, a gleaming trolleybus arrives, whirring to a halt and discharging a decent number of passengers; a fair few head for the shops, but most just get in their cars and leave – and those that are shopping overwhelmingly visit one business and then leave. Clearly, this place is not a destination in and of itself.
The trolleybus has gone, but the timetable suggests another is due shortly; the map in the shelter reveals the next one due doesn't go direct to the city centre, and will require changing onto a tram about halfway there. Or maybe the trolley becomes a tram…? Whatever, it's not particularly clear; fortunately the ticket machine is a little easier to understand, and we're able to buy a ticket that will get us there and back again.
If the timetable is accurate, the trolleys of Busless World don't seem much more inclined to stick to it than OTL's buses. There's none of the live update screens or dot-matrix scrolls one might expect in what appears to be a rather important interchange either, which is annoying. While we're waiting, a trolley arrives from town; rather than turning round, however, it disengages its poles and continues down the unelectrified road out of town, making a rather bus-like din. One of our fellow passengers, seeing your shocked expression, points after it. "Hybrid," they say, by way of explanation. Before you can embarrass us further, our trolley arrives and we all pile in; it's a double-decker, so we're going on the top deck.
This part of the journey is excruciatingly slow, with plenty of stops and lots of sharp corners; at least it's pretty quiet, so people don't have to shout over the rattle of the engine and chairs and every other part of the vehicle like on a normal bus. After a while, you note that we seem to be keeping away from the big arterial roads where we might make some quicker progress. The passenger from before, the one who pointed out the hybrid to you, is sitting nearby; you remark on this to them.
They look at you as though you have suddenly grown an extra arm. "Well, no, because that's where the cars go," they explain, as though you are very stupid.
I am also looking at you as though you have suddenly grown an extra arm. This is partly because I do not wish to arouse suspicion, and partly because I have just decided not to invite you on any more trips.
This does make sense, however; there aren't as many cars driving on these roads as might be expected in our world. There does seem to be some kind of vehicular segregation at work here.
Presently, our trolley reaches one of these big arterial roads, and yes, there are a lot of cars (and vans, and lorries, and every other form of road transport). Apart from our junction, which is at right-angles to the road, there are no wires expect for the tramline that runs down the central reservation – yet apparently our trolley goes down this road…? This conundrum is answered when our trolley lurches across the carriageway and then turns down the central reservation, now drawing power from the tram catenary. This must be where the trolley 'becomes' a tram, then.
Our progress is much quicker now; in a few short minutes, we reach the interchange where we swap our trolley for a tram. That interchange is more like a mini railway junction than a bus stop, with four platforms in the middle of a roundabout; this seems to be the cause of a fair bit of congestion for road users, the suckers. The timetable isn't optimised for connections, either; the tram we want is just leaving as our trolley arrives, and a quick perusal of the timetable reveals that our trolley wasn't late and that's just what was supposed to happen. Still, there's another one along four minutes later – and this one, like our trolley, is a double-decker. The word 'bullet-tram' springs to mind, followed by visions unbidden of acid baths, the gold standard and hot Foot-on-Powell action soundtracked by a catchy 1960s theme tune jingle.
Almost immediately, we're off the dual carriageway and running on ordinary roads; this particular street happens to be pretty wide, so we're running down the middle as cars pass by on either side. There's a lot of complicated signage above and around us, explaining to motorists exactly what they should do in the presence of such magisterial tramage. I wonder aloud why anyone would drive down such streets, and our passenger friend looks at me as though I have suddenly grown an extra head.
Three stops later, we come to a heavy-rail line on an embankment. The tramline diverges; the main route continues along the road, while the fork rises to meet and join the railway line. Majestically, and in violation of many real-world loading gauges, our tram rises to join the railway, revealing that it is in fact a tram-train.
Our speedy journey to the central railway station passes a ring of towering, ziggurat-like multistorey car-parks; every street past this point bears the single red lines that are the multiverse-spanning symbols for congestion charge zones, and almost every street bears the electric filigree of catenary. The highways and byways are still thronged with traffic – delivery vans, taxis, motorcycle couriers, emergency services – but there are also more cyclists, and somehow more pedestrians, than in our world.
We do't have much time on arrival to explore; we have to get back to our departure point sharpish, and the only train that can get us there in time departs from the opposite platform in five minutes' time. We barely make it up out of the subway before it pulls in-
…Hang on. That- that can't be right.
Oh, no. Oh please, God, no…
It's… It's a…
…I don't know how to tell you this, but it's a Pacer.
A Pacer with a pantograph.
…
THEY ELECTRIFIED A FU—
*
(This was supposed to be a piece to provoke discussion. Because I am a helpless narcissist, it got a bit more write-y than that, but I still want to encourage discussion of the topic and thus willingly accept brutal dismemberings of each and every aspect of my scenario)
But what if it didn't?
*
In Busless World, or at least this particular iteration of it, Catenary is King. The train, the tram and the trolleybus are common sights in cities the world over, and so is the tangle of overhead wires that comes with them. Knowing exactly what is a tram, a train or a trolleybus can be a bit difficult, but we'll come to that.
Let's start our journey as many others do; in one of the vast car-parks that dot the city's edgelands. At first glance one could be forgiven in mistaking it for a retail park from our world, delineated by the familiar boxy shapes of retail units; but this car-park is, if anything, too big. And I've never seen a retail park in our world with such a dizzying array of wires suspended over the entrance.
As we watch, a gleaming trolleybus arrives, whirring to a halt and discharging a decent number of passengers; a fair few head for the shops, but most just get in their cars and leave – and those that are shopping overwhelmingly visit one business and then leave. Clearly, this place is not a destination in and of itself.
The trolleybus has gone, but the timetable suggests another is due shortly; the map in the shelter reveals the next one due doesn't go direct to the city centre, and will require changing onto a tram about halfway there. Or maybe the trolley becomes a tram…? Whatever, it's not particularly clear; fortunately the ticket machine is a little easier to understand, and we're able to buy a ticket that will get us there and back again.
If the timetable is accurate, the trolleys of Busless World don't seem much more inclined to stick to it than OTL's buses. There's none of the live update screens or dot-matrix scrolls one might expect in what appears to be a rather important interchange either, which is annoying. While we're waiting, a trolley arrives from town; rather than turning round, however, it disengages its poles and continues down the unelectrified road out of town, making a rather bus-like din. One of our fellow passengers, seeing your shocked expression, points after it. "Hybrid," they say, by way of explanation. Before you can embarrass us further, our trolley arrives and we all pile in; it's a double-decker, so we're going on the top deck.
This part of the journey is excruciatingly slow, with plenty of stops and lots of sharp corners; at least it's pretty quiet, so people don't have to shout over the rattle of the engine and chairs and every other part of the vehicle like on a normal bus. After a while, you note that we seem to be keeping away from the big arterial roads where we might make some quicker progress. The passenger from before, the one who pointed out the hybrid to you, is sitting nearby; you remark on this to them.
They look at you as though you have suddenly grown an extra arm. "Well, no, because that's where the cars go," they explain, as though you are very stupid.
I am also looking at you as though you have suddenly grown an extra arm. This is partly because I do not wish to arouse suspicion, and partly because I have just decided not to invite you on any more trips.
This does make sense, however; there aren't as many cars driving on these roads as might be expected in our world. There does seem to be some kind of vehicular segregation at work here.
Presently, our trolley reaches one of these big arterial roads, and yes, there are a lot of cars (and vans, and lorries, and every other form of road transport). Apart from our junction, which is at right-angles to the road, there are no wires expect for the tramline that runs down the central reservation – yet apparently our trolley goes down this road…? This conundrum is answered when our trolley lurches across the carriageway and then turns down the central reservation, now drawing power from the tram catenary. This must be where the trolley 'becomes' a tram, then.
Our progress is much quicker now; in a few short minutes, we reach the interchange where we swap our trolley for a tram. That interchange is more like a mini railway junction than a bus stop, with four platforms in the middle of a roundabout; this seems to be the cause of a fair bit of congestion for road users, the suckers. The timetable isn't optimised for connections, either; the tram we want is just leaving as our trolley arrives, and a quick perusal of the timetable reveals that our trolley wasn't late and that's just what was supposed to happen. Still, there's another one along four minutes later – and this one, like our trolley, is a double-decker. The word 'bullet-tram' springs to mind, followed by visions unbidden of acid baths, the gold standard and hot Foot-on-Powell action soundtracked by a catchy 1960s theme tune jingle.
Almost immediately, we're off the dual carriageway and running on ordinary roads; this particular street happens to be pretty wide, so we're running down the middle as cars pass by on either side. There's a lot of complicated signage above and around us, explaining to motorists exactly what they should do in the presence of such magisterial tramage. I wonder aloud why anyone would drive down such streets, and our passenger friend looks at me as though I have suddenly grown an extra head.
Three stops later, we come to a heavy-rail line on an embankment. The tramline diverges; the main route continues along the road, while the fork rises to meet and join the railway line. Majestically, and in violation of many real-world loading gauges, our tram rises to join the railway, revealing that it is in fact a tram-train.
Our speedy journey to the central railway station passes a ring of towering, ziggurat-like multistorey car-parks; every street past this point bears the single red lines that are the multiverse-spanning symbols for congestion charge zones, and almost every street bears the electric filigree of catenary. The highways and byways are still thronged with traffic – delivery vans, taxis, motorcycle couriers, emergency services – but there are also more cyclists, and somehow more pedestrians, than in our world.
We do't have much time on arrival to explore; we have to get back to our departure point sharpish, and the only train that can get us there in time departs from the opposite platform in five minutes' time. We barely make it up out of the subway before it pulls in-
…Hang on. That- that can't be right.
Oh, no. Oh please, God, no…
It's… It's a…
…I don't know how to tell you this, but it's a Pacer.
A Pacer with a pantograph.
…
THEY ELECTRIFIED A FU—
*
(This was supposed to be a piece to provoke discussion. Because I am a helpless narcissist, it got a bit more write-y than that, but I still want to encourage discussion of the topic and thus willingly accept brutal dismemberings of each and every aspect of my scenario)