The Western Railway Museum has the unique opportunity to preserve the last P2020 LRV from the Los Angeles Metro. We need your help to raise $10,000 to transport car 164 to the museum. With car 164 we can better educate our visitors on how the Metro revolutionized rapid transit with light rail in Los Angeles County.
In 1980 Proposition A was passed which put in place a half cent sales tax that would be used to build 150 miles of passenger rail service. In 1985 construction of the the Blue Line started. On July 14th, 1990 the Blue Line opened creating a clean alternative to freeway traffic. 54 class P865 light rail vehicles were manufactured in Japan by Nippon Sharyo. An additional 15 P2020 class cars arrived in 1995 for the Green Line that opened that year. The P2020 was identical to the P865 but had the needed automated train control systems for the Green Line.
The 15 P2020 cars were then transferred over to the Blue Line by 2000. In 2018 the original P865 cars were retired and subsequently scrapped. The last P2020 cars remained in service until 2021 when the the majority were scrapped. Car 164 is now the only remaining P2020. This unique car is now available to the Western Railway Museum and we need your donations to transport car 164 so it can join our fleet of operating historic streetcars.
This will also give the museum another car with air conditioning and ADA access once a ramp is constructed. 164 will keep the wear and tear off our streetcars and interurbans that are reaching over 100 years old.
Please consider a donation today to help preserve car 164 and the history of how Metro Rail revitalized electric rapid transit in Los Angeles.
