I came across this gem in some Capital Transit blueprint files we recently received at NCTM. Thanks to Wikipedia I can report the following:

Versare Car Company was a bus and trolley bus maker founded in 1925 and originally based in Watervliet, New York. Among their early work were experimental buses that utilized diesel and electric engines that could be run alone or together, a technique that could be seen as a very early ancestor to dual-mode vehicles of the modern day.

In 1928, the assets of the company were purchased by the Cincinnati Car Company and the company's base was moved from Watervliet to Cincinnati, Ohio. The Versare nameplate returned in 1931 and remained until its demise in 1938.

The drawing is dated April 30, 1924 and in addition to the Versare name, carries the heading "Capitol District Motor Corporation, Albany, New York". Other Google references to Versare include a reference to "the ugly duckling of buses."

Presented with apology for the scanning quality of my Epson C4780. I didn't have time to hook up the good scanner.

Wesley

That's really interesting. Kind of unrelated but I never really thought of it until now while looking at that blueprint, why do trackless trolleys have two pantographs while railed trolleys have a single pantograph?

I presume you mean two trolley poles, not pantographs. And the reason for the second pole is that the second wire is there to provide the route for the return current, since there is no rail to serve the return function.

The trackless trolley, or trolley bus, is still very much with us in some cities:

Mike

The trackless trolley in the drawing was an unsuccessful proposal that was never built. The Brockway Motor Truck Co. was the successful bidder for the trackless trolleys that Capital District bought in 1924, possibly because they proposed a more conventional two-axle design. I wonder how Versare proposed to steer those dual front axles!

Versare/Cincinnati did build 40 trolley buses between 1928 and 1931; for Salt Lake City, Knoxville, New Orleans and Chicago. Most of these lasted until shortly after World War 2, with the New Orleans and Chicago buses being replaced by postwar trolleybuses.

Some years ago (maybe many years ago) the Motor Bus Society had a small special publication about the Versare trolley coaches. As I recall, it was first an independent enterprise that was acquired by Cincinnati.

.

I'll see you and raise you substantially.



This turned up on one of many SmartMedia cards in one of the hundreds of boxes I'm going through in a certain estate. This is a Bombardier Guided Bus Transit system installed in Nancy, France and shown while testing in 2002. The "buses" also run on regular roads away from the "monorails."