US Standard Light Rail Vehicle
The US Standard Light Rail Vehicle (SLRV) was a light rail vehicle (LRV) built by Boeing Vertol in the 1970s. The Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) of the United States 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 SLRV was seen as both a replacement for older PCC streetcars in many cities and as a catalyst for cities to construct new light rail systems. The US SLRV was marketed as and is popularly known as the Boeing LRV or SLRV, and should not be confused with their prior lunar roving vehicles for NASA.
| US Standard Light Rail Vehicle | |
|---|---|
A Boeing Vertol US SLRV in service for the San Francisco Municipal Railway in 1980, on the then-newly opened Muni Metro | |
| In service | 1976-1998 (MUNI) 1976-2007 (MBTA) |
| 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 219 |
| Specifications | |
| Car length | 71 ft (21.64 m) |
| Width | 8 ft 10+1⁄4 in (2,699 mm) |
| Height | 11 ft 4 in (3.454 m) ATOR |
| Floor height | 34 in (86.4 cm) ATOR |
| Maximum speed | 50 mph (80.5 km/h) with multiple units |
| Weight | 67,000 lb (30,391 kg) empty |
| Traction system | 2 powered trucks, each with monomotor, 210 hp (157 kW), 152 kV, 280 V DC, 600 A |
| Acceleration | 3.1 mi/h/s (1.4 m/s/s) |
| UIC classification | Bo’2Bo’ |
| AAR wheel arrangement | B-2-B |
| Braking system(s) | Air/Hydraulic NY Air Brake |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
The SLRV was purchased by the public transportation operators of Boston and San Francisco; in service by 1976, the US SLRV proved to be unreliable and scrapping started as early as 1987, but the SLRV were not completely replaced in both systems until 2007. Although the SLRV itself was not successful due to poor reliability, it did set the general size and configuration for succeeding LRVs in the United States.