History
The original concept of the LRV came to fruition in the late 1960s as the limited number of cities with PCCs in North America were looking for modern replacements for their aging rolling stock. When the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) in San Francisco, California, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in Boston, Massachusetts, were looking at building new vehicles or import existing European vehicles, the UMTA created a committee (the BSF Committee) to design a standardized light rail car. At the same time, a flood of defense conversion projects came to fruition as the result of government encouragement to help keep defense suppliers busy as the Vietnam War was coming to an end. UMTA, under President Nixon's "Buy America" program, would not fund any transit vehicles which were not produced in the United States, nor approved by the Administration.
By 1973, UMTA awarded Boeing-Vertol of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the contract to produce the LRV at a cost of approximately $300,000 per car. Muni initially ordered 80 cars, and the MBTA ordered 150. Later, the orders were expanded to 100 and 175 respectively. The first demonstrator model was produced in 1975, and was intended to be an early Muni car. The LRVs entered revenue service on December 30, 1976, on the MBTA's Green Line "D" Branch. In San Francisco, the first two LRVs were delivered in October 1977, and production deliveries started in December 1978. The first regular runs on the Muni system came on April 23, 1979, on a temporary shuttle service, with more extensive use beginning with the opening of the Muni Metro in February 1980.
The LRV was also nearly purchased by Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in Philadelphia and Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) in Cleveland, Ohio, however those companies later struck down their deals and went their own ways, buying their light rail cars (to their own unique designs) from Kawasaki and Breda (who, ironically, later built cars that replaced the Boeings in both Boston and San Francisco), respectively.
The car body shells and truck frames were built by Tokyu Car Corporation, and the motors provided by Garrett, with the components assembled at the Boeing plant in Ridley, Pennsylvania.
Read more about this topic: US Standard Light Rail Vehicle
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