This is one of the Boeing-Vertol Light Rail Vehicles being scrapped at Riverside Yard on the MBTA. Very moving to me, especially with the producer’s choice of music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n64duG73Sak
Very sad…
Yep,
That’s sad…How old were these cars and what’s the life span of a typical lrv ?
Is that the last of the boeing cars?
Those LRV’s were 31 years old, put in service in 1976 and scrapped in 2007.
The Boeing-Vertol cars are all out of revenue service on the MBTA, but there are still a few in MOW service. I don’t know if other transit agencies (in other cities, Boston only has the MBTA) still use any.
EDIT: I just looked it up on Wikipedia; the MBTA now uses 3 cars in MOW service:
Rerailer car 3417
Track geometry car 3448
Maintenance of Way car 3453
Other than that, none are in service today. The MUNI in California retired them before MBTA, and they are thinking of restoring one.
It takes skill and many hours of man’s labor to build 'em. It only takes minutes to tear 'em down, and no skill at all. I suppose it’s something that’s necessary, but … I guess the same thing can be said of our mortal bodies. Maybe it’s that corollary which saddens us.
And the reason for scrapping was…? They looked in pretty good shape to me, typical government beauracracy to scrap things then go buy new “stuff”
Reminds me of the trees on my HO scale layout…5 hours to forest the whole hillside, then the cats get up on the layout and destroy them all…[sigh]
These units apperently had quite a few problems, such as reliability issues, derailing issues, and Ac/C problems. MBTA did have a bunch rebuilt, and they ran fine after that. No idea why they didn’t do them all like that. The replacement cars had a ton of problems too…even more than the Boeing-Vertol LRVs.
It is so sad to see those (relatively) youthful LRT’s put to scrap.
I know that Boeing delivered a large order of L cars for Chicago’s CTA in the mid-seventies. They don’t look anything at all like the LRT’s in the video; they were based on original designs by Budd.
I wonder what firm first designed the LRT’s that Boeing (Vertol) later built and delivered? - a.s.
You know I agree the cars looked like they had been kept in good order to me.
Wonder why an upstarting light rail company or smaller urban city didn’t try an purchase them ?
I just don’t know,but was the cars overhead electric ? Or could they have been converted to run with diesel electric or some other means ?
Seems somebody could have used them .