OERHS Equipment Roster
Seattle Trolley Bus 
#604

Built in 1940 by Twin Coach Co.

This is a Trolley Bus from Seattle. The photo to the left shows it with its cousin #648. This bus's original number was #922, later changed to 653 and the last change was to #604. Trolley buses use twin poles as opposed to the single pole used by streetcars since there are no rails for the return circuit. 

sea611.jpg (26021 bytes)The view on the right was taken during the Steamup of 2000. Trolley buses were not a wide spread as trolleys, nor did their popularity last long. Diesel buses were consider more flexible since they did no have to follow wires.

sea-etb604-10.jpg (213721 bytes)The view to the left was taken 9/2000. Seattle still maintains a large fleet of trolley buses. They go up and down steep hills easier than diesel buses. This is was San Francisco also operates ETB's as they are know. Seattle also run hybrid ETB's in a downtown bus tunnel. In the tunnel they operate on overhead wires, outside the tunnel they utilize their on board diesel engines. Alas, this situation will end within the next 5 years. The bus tunnel will be converted to Light Rail operation.

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Page last updated 02/28/10