Boeing LRV

US Standard Light Rail Vehicle
A Boeing Vertol USSLRV in service for the San Francisco Municipal Railway in 1980, on the then-newly opened Muni Metro.
Constructed	1976–1979
Entered service	1976–1984
Scrapped	1987–2012
Number built	275
Capacity	seated 52 (MBTA, later reduced to 48 to provide room for wheelchairs) or 68 (Muni), with crush load of 275
Specifications
Car length	71 ft (21,640 mm)
Maximum speed	50 mph with multiple units
Weight	67,000 lb (30,390 kg)
Traction system	Monomotor, 210 hp (160 kW), 152 kV, 280 V DC, 600 A
Prime mover(s)	2 Garrett 420 hp (310 kW)
Braking system(s)	Air/Hydraulic NY Air Brake
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)

The US Standard Light Rail Vehicle was a light rail vehicle (LRV) built by Boeing Vertol in the 1970s. The Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) promoted it as a standardized vehicle for U.S. cities. Part of a series of defense conversion projects in the waning days of the Vietnam War, the LRV was seen as both a replacement for older PCC streetcars in many cities and as a catalyst for new cities to construct light rail systems. The USSLRV was marketed as and is popularly known as the Boeing LRV (not to be confused with their prior lunar roving vehicles for NASA) and is usually referred to as such.

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 Muni in San Francisco, California and the MBTA in Boston, Massachusetts were looking at building new vehicles or import existing European vehicles, 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.