Electrified mass transit is coming to a few Wisconsin cities in hopes of reducing air pollution and gasoline use. Racine, for example, is trying out electric buses. But using electricity to move dozens of people at a time is also a very old idea in Wisconsin.
On a recent Friday afternoon, Racine Transit general manager Willie McDonald sat at the steering wheel of a new bus parked outside the transit system's garage. This is not your dad or mom's diesel.
McDonald began to turn some switches, "I literally have a switch that turns it on and activates it," he said as beeping sounds started, then slight humming. He continued, "Right now, it's ready to go. It's running now. Can't hear it. But it's 'running.'" McDonald said.
This is one of nine buses in Racine powered by rechargeable batteries. The nine are 25% of the city's fleet. Only three electric buses are on the road at a time, as the transit system is still building a more powerful charging unit that can re-energize more buses at once.
McDonald said the city has been trying out the electric buses under varying conditions, such as temperature, time of day and how fast the driver tends to accelerate.
He said he's becoming a convert.
"You know, been here 33 years with diesel buses. You're a little reserved because there's fear of the unknown, is how I like to put it. But, we've got 'em on the road. We've worked out what issues, small issues, that we had. And we're leading the way. So with that, I'm feeling a whole lot better about them," McDonald said.
McDonald said additional testing will occur when the weather gets very cold. But Racine recently received a federal grant to buy four more electric buses. Federal funds and money from the national emissions cheating settlement with Volkswagen paid for the first nine vehicles.
Milwaukee County had hoped to have its battery electric bus system, also known as Bus Rapid Transit, operating this year. But global supply chain issues have pushed back the BRT launch until next spring.
Meanwhile, there is another local way to experience electrified mass transit.
It's the East Troy Electric Railroad.
Blasts from the trolley car's whistle warned car drivers at street crossings, railroad enthusiasts, families with little kids, and at least one journalist recently took the roughly fourteen-mile roundtrip ride between East Troy and Mukwonago. The Electric Railroad is celebrating its 50th year of tourist trains and trolleys. It's on a line that was first completed in 1907 as part of an interurban rail system that connected cities and towns long before the interstate highways.
Operations Manager Jim Feyerherm is part of the railroad's all-volunteer workforce of more than 100 people. He described how electricity comes into play.
"There's six-hundred volts above us that we used to generate here at the depot, but now we buy from WE Energies and convert that over to 600 volts DC [direct current] on an above trolley line. Put our trolley wires up, and the electricity goes into a controller for the motorman, who puts that to the motors, and away we go," Feyerherm told WUWM.
Feyerherm said there's a lesson in longevity.
"I think the lesson for modern transportation is that this still exists. This mode of transportation, this mode of operating, using electricity, putting it to electric traction motors has been around for a long, long time," he said.
Greendale resident Ryan Jonas is president of the non-profit East Troy Railroad Museum, which operates the trains, and counts on donors and fare revenue from about 30,000 riders each year to keep things running.
Jonas has a little advice for operators of more modern transit.
"I mean, safety is the most important thing. And so, when you have big pieces of equipment going down the road, that's always a concern. So, we spend a lot of time training our volunteers to operate as safe as possible. Number two, it's labor-intensive. Everything needs maintenance."
But Jonas said the East Troy operation has enough love that volunteers recently restored a 98-year-old railcar from Chicago, and it's now in service.
Offering a look at electrified transit's past as bus operators in Racine prepare for what seems to be the future.
