Homeless in Vancouver: Electrical trolley wire falls in 1400 block of West Broadway—causes no trouble at all

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      Firefighters from the nearby Fire Hall No. 4, as well as TransLink workers, were quick to deal with a fallen electrical trolley wire in the 1400 block of West Broadway Avenue this morning (April 4).

      At 9:14 a.m. a fire truck running its flashing lights turned eastbound off South Granville Street and took up a jackknifed position in the westbound lane of the 1400 block of West Broadway. Two firefighters piled out of the truck and made a beeline eastward.

      The firefighters appeared, at first glance, to be headed for an idled trolley bus parked a third of the block away—its pantographs (trolley wire poles) stowed down on their storage hooks. More buses could be seen stopped on the east end of the block and on the other side of the intersection with Hemlock Avenue.

      Emergency responders hope you won’t get a charge out of this

      In front of an idled trolley bus a detached electrical trolley wire curls on the westbound roadway of West Broadway.
      Stanley Q. Woodvine

      The object of the firefighters’ attention—difficult to see from any distance—turned out to been an electrical trolley wire that had fallen from its normal overhead position onto the eastbound lane of West Broadway.

      The two overhead wires that power Vancouver ‘s electric trolley buses are carrying a lot of juice—something like 600 volts of direct current (one of them is, at least. The other is unpowered and serves as a grounding wire).

      Firefighters—assuming that they were dealing with the dangerous powered trolley wire—quickly taped off a boundary around the thing. Then, after the area was secured, transit supervisors stepped in to deal with the stacked-up westbound buses.

      Double-length, articulated diesels and regular electric trolleys (on battery power) were carefully routed around the obstruction through the eastbound lane of the 1400 block.

      By 10 a.m. transit crews had the errant trolley wire well in hand.
      Stanley Q. Woodvine

      trolley overhead crew from TransLink’s Coast Mountain Bus swooped in by 10 a.m. and—working quickly from atop their distinctive maintenance truck, with it’s non-conductive, all-wooden, rooftop platform—removed the wire from the roadway and repaired the overhead break.

      And just like that, by 10:15 a.m., traffic was flowing normally through the eastbound lane as if nothing had happened. And in truth, nothing really did.

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