LRVs for sale, get your LRVs right here

This link just came to my attention noting that the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority is selling a group of junk light rail cars. Among the group are the last three Boeing-Vertol LRVs left on MBTA property. All three are listed on PNAERC because for quite some time I've made a practice of including pieces of equipment that were of obviously historic nature, even if that equipment was still in work service. In many cases this just means that equipment is on PNAERC for some time before it makes its way to a museum, but in this case the cars may just end up being taken off the list due to scrapping before they ever make it into formal preservation.

The three LRVs, all built by Boeing-Vertol in 1976, consist of three cars converted for various types of work service during the 1990s when the LRVs as a class were being retired from passenger service. Two of them, car 3453 pictured at the top and car 3417 pictured above, are significant (to a point) in that they're the last Boeing LRVs in existence with their original plug doors. These doors were notorious for their complexity and unreliability and many of the T's LRVs - as well as all of San Francisco's LRVs - were rebuilt with far simpler folding doors. The only formally preserved Boston LRV, car 3424 at Seashore, was rehabbed with folding doors. My notes suggest that at one point Seashore was considering acquiring one of these cars to represent the type's original configuration but I do not believe that is still the case, considering the internal alterations that were made when these cars were converted to work service and their current poor condition.

And the third car is car 3448, which at some point in the 1990s (I think) was painted in traditional Boston Elevated Railway orange and cream. While the photos on the auction site suggest this car appears to be in slightly better condition than the other two, it still looks awfully rough.

Though it's possible someone may want one of them, it seems unlikely and I would surmise that before too long these three LRVs will be gone. That will make car 3424 the only remaining Boston LRV and reduce the total number of Boeing LRVs in existence to four, with only three of those in museums.

Muni PCC scrapped

I happened upon information stating that Muni 1121, an ex-St. Louis Public Service PCC car, was cut up sometime within the last year or so. As such it's been removed from the PNAERC list. The car, shown above, was built in 1946 as SLPS 1713 and ran in that city until it was sold to San Francisco in 1957. There it ran into the early 1980s and, according to my scant records, was sold by Muni in 1988. I'm not sure to whom it was sold, but by the mid-2000s it had surfaced in the collection of Old Pueblo Trolley in Tucson, Arizona where it was kept at their East 18th Street storage yard amidst a collection of mostly buses. OPT had to vacate that location recently, though, and while most of their streetcars were moved to a new indoor facility in South Tucson, car 1121 was not an accessed part of their collection and was not worth moving. After several years of the car being available to other museums, with no takers, it was scrapped. It is not a significant historic loss, as there are a lot of these ex-SLPS 1700s still around including one that has been completely restored to original condition.