By Stowell P. Watters
Staff Writer
    The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) has finished retiring of all of its Standard Light Rail Vehicles (SLRVs). This fleet, also used in San Francisco, is important because it marks what General Manager of the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport Roger Tobin, called the catalyst for “the resurgence in light rail transit in the United States.”
    “Trolleys tie us to the turn of the century. This will be the newest car in our collection,” Tobin said. His passion is not for individual units, but for how the entire industry of public transit shaped the society of America. “There would be no cities without public transit, and the standard light really brought that whole concept to the modern age.”
    For reference, a light rail vehicle is any of such that can run both above and underground. Light rail vehicles run on electric tracks and often have electrified cabling overhead, according to a brochure produced by the Seashore Trolley Museum. First used in 1976, the SLRVs replaced the prior-used PCC Rail Cars, which were built in 1952. But according to Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Seashore Trolley Museum James Chantz, there was a lull in the industry before the implementation of the SLRVs.
    “With the rise of the automobile and the expansion of the American suburbs, trolleys began to more or less fade away from public use — they only stayed in large cities,” Chantz said.
    In 1969, President Richard Nixon heard the clamoring of Boston and San Fransisco’s city planners. Because of increased metropolitan populations the two cities were determined to replace their outdated rail, Chantz said, and bring in a modern era of public transit. Each city individually examined the rail lines of Europe and Germany and designed their own models of a light rail vehicle; but the Nixon administration scraped these early plans.
    “Nixon was operating on an inclusive American transit policy. He wanted to promote industry in the country and so he told the two cities to come together on one design, an American design,” Chantz said.
   The SLRV project was adopted in 1973 by Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia, Chantz said. The Boeing-Vertol company, previously known for their work with aircraft, won a bid to design the car that year and proceeded to create what vice president of the management and economics consulting firm, who dealt largely with the production of the SLRV in the 1970s and 1980s, Edward Moscovitch called “a high-tech, low-reliability nightmare.”
    The car needed to be large, so Boeing built it as two units connected by a flexible midsection, this construction is called ‘articulated.’ The doors had 413 moveable parts and even though each car had its own motor, the original SLRVs could “barely” push one another home if one car were malfunctioning, Moscovitch wrote in a 1987 letter to the Boston Globe.
    Additionally, the air conditioners, so enthusiastically recommended by all cities involved, were located near the floor, thus working against the laws of basic thermo-dynamics, wrote Chantz. According to the letter written by Moscovitch, slush would get into the devices and break them down. The SLRVs only had one device per car that would transfer power from the lines to the motors. If that broke, the car would be stranded.
    “They had so many problems, Boeing knew how to build things in the air, but with public transit they were too complicated, their designs required too many parts,” Chantz said.
    According to Chantz, top transit officials were brought in from San Francisco and Boston to deal with the SLRVs original problems. What they produced and what the Seashore Trolley Museum is hoping to restore is the updated version of the SLRV, which was used in Boston and San Francisco for 30 years.
    Moving the car from Boston to Kennebunkport is no small task. Transferring the articulated vehicle in one piece would cost an estimated $35,000, according to museum Parts Manager Daniel Cohen. He is now recommending the car be broken down in two pieces, which would each be shipped to Maine for an estimated $3,000 a piece. In addition to this $6,000 would be reassembly fees resulting in a total $12,000 to get the vehicle to Maine.
    “My job is to basically get parts that don’t exist,” said Cohen, jokingly. “Whether because they are too old or they don’t make them anymore I have to find them one way or another.”
    He said the 72 foot car would be a grand addition to the fleet of 250 vehicles already at the museum because it is so integral to the evolution of the business. Because street cars are powered by electricity and do not produce emissions, Cohen calls them “green.”
    “This car embodies the revitalization of public transit, it is the dawning of the new age,” Cohen said. “Rail vehicles ran mostly on hydro-power, they are green.”
    Because the museum is non-profit they are asking anyone with an interest to see this car restored and on display in Kennebunkport to make donations payable to The New England Electric Railway Historical Society. Their address can be found on their Web site www.trolleymuseum.org.
    To contact Stowell P. Watters, call 282-4337 ext. 219 or email news@kennebunkpost.com.