In about 1980, the Carter Administration and the FRA was looking for a fuel-efficient passenger rail vehicle for various commuter services throughout the US.

They happened upon the Leyland Experimental Vehicle railbus.

The first one, LEV-1, was brought over, but quickly returned as being too inadequate.

A second railbus was was imported - this time bigger than LEV-1. It was called LEV-2.

LEV-2 turned out to be totally inadquate for any passenger service in America. Complaints of it being uncomfortable and unreliable plagued it continually.

LEV-2 was sold numerous times, to end up in a trolley museum in Connecticut. The museum did not see LEV-2 as a valuable part of its collection, and it met its demise at the scrapper's torch in 2021. A later railbus, the RB004, was sent to the US and tested on SEPTA's regional rail. Like LEV-2, it did not go over very well, and it was taken out of service very quickly.

This is the story of the British railbus in America. Unfortunately, it was not a successful one.