Why Does This Tiny Rust Belt City Have Trolleybuses? 

As a born and raised Daytonian. Trolleybuses, aren't just part of our public transit scene. They're part of our history. They're part of all of us.

Worth mentioning that because they electrified their streetcar service in 1888, that means Dayton has had an electric transit service continuously since 1888 with the trolleybuses being the current manifestation, so they've had an electric transit service LONGER than ANY other city in the US! Quite the achievement for a city like Dayton! Trolleybuses are a great solution for bus electrification for several reasons. For hilly routes like in Seattle and San Francisco, trolleybuses are better than motorbuses as electric motors provide much higher static torque at start-up, an advantage for climbing steep hills. No battery means lower weight and lower cost, plus less resource waste! I'm amenable to BEV busses as if they're part of a greater trolleybus system, they can be deployed to areas where running wires isn't feasible and can connect back to the grid once they return to the wires. Trolleybuses are especially great where electricity is abundant, cheap, and renewable, such as hydroelectric. Systems in Seattle and Vancouver in Canada draw hydroelectric power from the Columbia River and other Pacific river systems! And compared to trams, they're cheaper, there's easier training as the potential operator pool for all buses is larger than trams, they're quieter, and not to mention easier traffic avoidance! The most interesting trolleybus system of all-time has to be Kabul's former trolleybus system! It began operations in February 1979, nearly a year after the Saur Revolution led to the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, and ceased operations in 1992, so it basically only existed during the communist period. It was built by the Czechoslovak company Elektrizace železnic Praha (or Electrification of railways Prague) and initially ran with 25 Škoda 9TrH23 trolleybuses (eventually expanding to 86 vehicles by 1988, of which 80 were in operation) between Pamir Cinema in downtown Kabul to Silo Road (Kote Sangi) in western Kabul, via Kabul Zoo, Karte Char and Kabul University. The Afghans further expanded it, split the line into three routes, and the system ended up with a length of 12.5 km. It was extremely popular due to its low fares and carried about 21 million passengers per year! However, its overhead line and electric contact network was reportedly in bad condition by the late 1980s with poor maintenance. Following the outbreak of civil war, the last trolleybus came to a halt in late 1992. The copper overhead wires were subsequently looted and sold to scrap dealers.

Dayton’s advocates were needed in Boston in 2022.

Dayton is underrated.

Unfortunately Route 5 South had the wires taken down this year. It has been run by a diesel bus that is now route 6

Cincinnati used to have trolley busses. I went to school there in the late 50s and enjoyed the clean, efficient service all over town. I think they were retired sometime in the 60s and replaced by diesel busses. I never understood why.

I wish more places had trolley buses, I think they’re pretty cool. I got to ride Bologna, Italy’s system fairly often despite only diesel buses running up by where I was staying for the semester back in 2022 because they were also the most modern buses in the fleet from what I saw and they were essentially trackless trains, which I think is neat.

"How much cheese are you gonna put on your chili?" to which Skyline Chili said *"Yes."* Cheese is love, cheese is life. The story behind Skyline Chili is that in 1912, Nicholas Lambrinides emigrated to Cincinnati from Kastoria, Greece, and brought his favorite family recipes with him. To save up the money to bring his wife to the US as well, he first worked as a cook for a railroad crew and in a hotel kitchen, then opened a short-order diner. After nearly a decade, his wife was able to join him in Cincinnati and they raised five sons. By WWII, Lambrinides was working as a chef for the original Empress Chili restaurant, where he continued to tinker with a recipe which he had been developing for years. In 1949, he and three of his sons opened their own place. Skyline Chili is unique in that it is not chili con carne, but instead, Cincinnati chili is a Mediterranean-spiced sauce usually used over spaghetti or hot dogs. The sauce was created by Tom and John Kiradjieff, who also emigrated from Kastoria because of fallout from the Balkan Wars and World War I, in 1921. They began serving a stew with traditional Mediterranean spices as a topping for hot dogs, which they called "coneys" (as many Greeks stopped in Coney Island after leaving Ellis Island before arriving in the Midwest) in 1922 at their hot dog stand located next to a burlesque theater called the Empress, which they named their business after. Tom Kiradjieff used the sauce to modify a traditional dish, speculated to have been pastitsio, moussaka or saltsa kima. He first developed a recipe calling for spaghetti to be cooked in the chili but changed his method in response to customer requests and began serving the sauce as a topping, eventually adding grated cheese as a topping for both the chili spaghetti and the coneys, also in response to customer requests. Pyongyang also has trolleybuses! It currently has 12 lines and a total length of 56.6 km! As of July 2024, the latest line opened in 2022 on Day of the Sun when a new line from Songyo to Songhwa was opened, while the line from West Pyongyang to Thermal Power was rerouted, both to serve the new Songhwa and Kyongru-dong residentials districts! The first plans for a trolleybus network were proposed in 1957, though construction only began in 1960, after Kim Il-sung ordered it. The network begun operation in April 1962!

As someone living in Switzerland, I find it funny to hear a city with over 100k inhabitants being called tiny. Here, that would be called a medium-size city. Anyway, trolleybuses are pretty common here. To my knowledge, no rigid trolleybuses are in regular service anymore, only articulated (18m/60ft) and bi-articulated (25m/80ft) ones. The latter are the most fun and can even be found in some cities with populations below 100k.

I went to Dayton in May with the hope to see and ride a trolley bus but none were running despite being a normal weekday and the new fleet. Whats the deal? Luckily was able shift to the Wright Brothers history and see both the Wright Flyer III and the trolley bus at Carillon Park.

At one point in time decades ago, even cities in South Africa and Algeria had trolleybuses! Algiers had trolleybuses between 1934 and 1974, and Cape Town had trolleybuses between 1935 and 1964! Johannesburg had trolleybuses between 1936 and 1986, and before then, it had trams starting with horsecars in 1891, converting to electric streetcars in 1906 and ending in 1961. Meanwhile in Marrakesh, Morocco, they built a BRT (that's partly trolleybus) system in 2017! The electricity powering the vehicles comes from solar power, as Morocco has become a solar power giant! Morocco has taken many green technological initiatives! In 2014, Morocco opened the Tarfaya Wind Farm with 131 turbines! In 2016, it opened the Ouarzazate solar station, the world's largest concentrated solar power plant, saving 760K tonnes of carbon emissions every year! With wind farms and solar farms across the country, this has contributed several billion dollars to the economy and added thousands of permanent jobs! And it's all adding up, as the country is consistently ranked high in the Climate Change Performance Index, with Morocco ranked NINTH in the 2024 edition.

"As keeping the fixed wire system was deemed more cost effective than removal" COUGH COUGH Boston.

Memphis, TN had an extensive network of overhead trolley wires in the 40’s, 50’s, and even into the 60’s. In the 60’s a heavy promotion by General Motors of its new diesel powered and AIR CONDITIONED buses convinced city fathers that that was the way to go. Unfortunately, that decision is still with us today along with the air pollution it helped to create.

Another awesome and informative video. It's really neat that Dayton has been so sensible about their trolley bus system in no small part to people who have seen the value of it. It's too bad Boston hasn't listened to these voices. I'll admit I've been thinking on and off for years about throwing my hat into the passenger rail/transit world. I strongly feel our future from a sustainability standpoint, both environmental and economic, and creating an equitable world is counting on it. And yes, yes, yes, yes to congestion pricing!!

It's really neat when they put the ice scrapers on the poles and the ice comes off!

We've had this smart and simple technology to power busses for so long, but route mileage of them in the United States woefully low. I hope that more transit agencies will electrify their busiest routes wity trolley technology instead of problematic batteries. I definitely need to pay Dayton a visit someday. Thank you!

Trolleybuses! I love trolleybuses almost as much as trams!

That makes so much more goddamn sense than a streetcar on rails

Here in Germany we have trolleybuses in Solingen , Esslingen and Eberswalde.

When I moved to Columbus Ohio in 1958 they still had trolley busses. They were really nice. However, the big motor corporations bribed the system to replace them with "cleaner" diesel busses. So, all the trolley busses disappeared by the mid 1960s. It was a big mistake for Columbus.

The Memphis Belle was named after pilot Robert K. Morgan's sweetheart, Margaret Polk who lived in of course, Memphis! Morgan originally intended to call it the Little One, which was his pet name for Polk. After Morgan and his copilot Jim Verinis viewed Lady for a Night, in which there is a riverboat named the Memphis Belle, he proposed that name to his aircrew! The National Museum of the US Air Force is the LARGEST and OLDEST military aviation museum in the world, so their collection is quite amazing! Besides the Memphis Belle, they also have the Apollo 15 Command Module Endeavour which carried David Scott, James Irwin, and Alfred Worden to the Moon in 1971 on NASA's fourth crewed lunar landing mission, and several Presidential aircraft, including those used by FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower.

It is a shame that Boston, Mass stupidly got rid of their trolley buses recently.

I like trollybuses. I ride them a lot in Budapest. The sound is more relaxing than a diesel engine

Trolleybuses are the only electric buses that actually work

DC screwed up getting rid of the trolley system

Carbons changed twice daily? I drive trolley buses in Vancouver. We change ours maybe once a day is the winter but can probably be changed every 5 days in the summer. Neat video. Dayton is on my list of places to visit.

One of my friends lives in Dayton. Him and the trolley lines are my motives to visit Dayton soon. Hope to get there around my Kings Island visits.

In SF, when dewirement happens, the operator just gets out walks behind and uses the cords to guide the poles back onto the electrified wire.

My favorite routes on bus simulator was the articulated trolley bus ones :3

My friend is a bus driver for the MBTA in Massachusetts and he actually drove the trolley buses in Cambridge before the MBTA decided to retire them in favor of electric buses.

Thank you for this video! I went to college near Dayton, and always wondered about their Trolleybuses!!

Brilliant video sir.

4:42 nearly got me!

A super high junkie climbed a huge evergreen tree in Downtown Seattle a decade ago and was up there living in the tree for a couple days - required extensive pushing of trolleys through several blocks of de-energized wires... back when they had the old fleet without backup power.

Great video I Enjoyed It I Live About 300 Miles From This System I Use to Live In Boston ma They Got Rid Of Their System 3 Years Ago 😊

I live here in the nearby suburbs and moved here in 2020. I think this city is a sweet, small wonder, close to burgeoning Columbus and not far from Cincinnati. Slowly..people are starting to discover the low cost of operating here, the affordable housing, architectural character, temperate weather and yes....a unique transit system which is a potentially very attractive option for those who want to make this city their home and may not want to use a car all the time...which is really still a needed reality here, as in most of America. However...with enough people here...ith more density it will bring more amenities.

I would like to visit Dayton, and funny enough I always wanted to visit there to go to the Air Force museum. Also the fact that I majored in an Aerospace related degree program, So Dayton Ohio is on my list to go. But wasn't aware of a great Trolleybus system they have there too. I know a friend of mines who lives in Ohio tells me about places like Dayton and Columbus. Anyways thats awesome an employee showed you the Trolleybus Depot.

Impressive if Dayton has this technology why couldn't Philadelphia and Boston do this. For them they will be running as a normal battery electric bus with Depot charge on routes where there is overhead wires they would simply charge both ways Depot and the overhead wire.

They are pulling overhead wiring on once used routes. Dayton is slowly phasing them out.

Trolleybuses are awesome and much like legacy streetcar networks, I wish a lot more cities in North America kept their networks! Dayton is on the transit foaming list for sure! Especially with an amazing aviation museum to boot!

0:15 "four cities" Shot this a couple years ago and you had five.

how wasn’t I notified about this

Dayton is a rockin’ place

I try to keep telling people, Ohio is legit.

Yeah about those backup diesels, my first sighting of a trolleybus was way back when in Bern (Switzerland) and I was shocked to hear a small genset fire up to save said trolleybus from being stuck in a neutral section at a crossroads next to the Zytglogge \m/

Dayton also hosts the WGI world championships every year!

2:08 woa one to two times **daily**?

It costs more for me to take a trolleybus to and from downtown than the gas and parking together would cost, but it's entirely worth it. Less wear on my car, overall energy and emissions savings, and a pleasant experience. My day was pretty much ruined when I went for a trip downtown and it was a diesel bus instead of the usual trolleybus on my route a couple months ago.

My wife is from Dayton and she rode the yellow trolleybuses that ran past her house.

Irm org has a Dayton and Boston trolley buses

Indianapolis had them and even manufactured them. Stupid to remove them.

Ok Cincy native here. I gotta ask, did you like the Skyline?

The diesel buses that are built to look like trolleys are actually built to look like CABLE CARS, and it just looks dumb. Cable cars aren't anything like trolley cars, anyway, since the method of propulsion is completely different. . .

Ok so I’ve got Dayton and Seattle but I forgot where the other two systems with them are. (Btw I live in Seattle and trolleys are the best)

Where did you get that miles footage

I would actually live here because of this, lol.

What is the other city , Philly my hometown so I know they have them , SF , Dayton , ?

Want you coming back Pittsburgh tour

"But where can I park my car?' is a question mass transit users don't have to ask. And if there is no or greatly reduced need for parking lots, businesses of all sorts can locate in older neighborhoods where they cannot under car over-dependency. Hence, more jobs, and social health in older parts of town.

The 3 C and D is in play again. If my stupid democrat friends vote November it can be a winner even in Ohio.

This guy mentioned Ohio in Ohio 💀 So much rizz

Who told you Dayton is a tiny town?

BEBs are... le bad!

Toronto still runs trolley buses along with street cars too.

Toronto Street cars are more of a ride than transit. I think if they have priority signaling and no parking along routes, it could be better.

Tiny?

2:04 you didn’t see graphite because there was no graphite there!

Great video…but I don’t understand why you make such a big deal about Dayton being “small”…when the reality is that size is irrelevant for something like this. Especially when you consider historical context, smaller cities than Dayton almost certainly had trolleybuses in the past. With everything supposedly “going green”, trolleybuses make 1000x more sense than battery electric buses…seeing as batteries are only for backup and therefore aren’t dragging down efficiency. A lot of energy gets lost in charging/recharging batteries, not to mention TIME that a vehicle must be out of service to recharge. Literally the best electric bus _is_ a trolleybus. What would be even better is rail…as there are half as many wires to maintain and rail is much more durable and reliable infrastructure than pavement and rubber tires. And we can look back in history here in America and abroad in the present to understand that metro size is not the most relevant factor in building/maintaining transit or especially in ridership. So many things matter more, like the practicality and speed of the route vs. driving, and how much the government prioritizes transit funding and development. The state of Ohio spends a fraction of what even surrounding states spend per capita on public transportation.

Why didn’t they just buy normal batterie buses then they could have done the same thing that the MBTA did removing the system entirely.

Dayton has these buses because the Democrat politicians who run Dayton wanted to funnel large amounts of taxpayer money into this system, no matter how inefficient and wasteful it is.

Interesting, but an incredibly ugly town