page_title: Trolley pole
section_title: Decline in usage on railways
hierarchical_section_title: Trolley pole / Decline in usage on railways
caption_attribution_description: English: Pantograph(left) and trolley pole in use on Queens Quay West, Toronto. Streetcar 4417 (left) is on route 509 using a pantograph while streetcar 4433 is on route 510 using a trolley pole.
context_page_description: A trolley pole is a tapered cylindrical pole of wood or metal, used to transfer electricity from a "live" overhead wire to the control and the electric traction motors of a tram or trolley bus. It is a type of current collector. The use of overhead wire in a system of current collection is reputed to be the 1880 invention of Frank J. Sprague, but the first working trolley pole was developed and demonstrated by Charles Van Depoele, in autumn 1885.
context_section_description: All trolleybuses use trolley poles, and thus trolley poles remain in use worldwide, wherever trolleybuses are in operation (some 315 cities as of 2011), and several manufacturers continue to make them, including Vossloh-Kiepe, Škoda and Lekov.
  However, on most railway vehicles using overhead wire, the trolley pole has given way to the bow collector or, later, the pantograph, a folding metal device that presses a wide contact pan against the overhead wire. While more complex than the trolley pole, the pantograph has the advantage of being almost free from dewiring, being more stable at high speed, and being easier to raise and lower automatically. Also, on double-ended trams, they eliminate the need to manually turn the trolley pole when changing direction (although this disadvantage can be overcome to some extent through the use of trolley reversers). The use of pantographs (or bow collectors) exclusively also eliminates the need for wire frogs (switches in the overhead wiring) to make sure the pole goes in the correct direction at junctions.
  Apart from heritage streetcar lines, very few tram/streetcar systems worldwide continue to use trolley poles on vehicles used in normal service.  Among the largest exceptions are the streetcar systems of Toronto, Ontario; Philadelphia (the "Subway-Surface" lines and Route 15); Riga, Latvia (however, new Škoda trams in Riga have pantographs); Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India; and Alexandria, Egypt. Smaller systems still using trolley poles for regular service include Hong Kong Tramways, the Daugavpils, Latvia system, and Rio de Janeiro's Santa Teresa Tramway. The MBTA system of Boston still uses trolley poles with the PCC streetcars it uses to serve the Ashmont–Mattapan High Speed Line.
caption: Pantograph(left) and trolley pole in use on Queens Quay West, Toronto
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