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All Things WMATA 7000 Series

Discussion related to DC area passenger rail services from Northern Virginia to Baltimore, MD. Includes Light Rail and Baltimore Subway.

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Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by Sand Box John
 
"srepetsk"
The train in service consists of cars 7000-7007. The second train (presumably 7008-7015) is expected to be in service sometime this month, but WMATA has yet to provide an actual date for its entrance to service.

There has to be more then 2 dozen cars on the property by now. Caught these at Greenbelt on 03 28 2015.

Image
7016, 7017, 7019, 7018

The reason why I asked for numbers is to aid in the updating of the testing and commissioning that is being tracked at fixmetro.org/7000series. So far he has relied totally on media reports for information on the numbers of car on the property and or in service.

Post you pictures and car numbers there so he can update the tally.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by srepetsk
 
Sand Box John wrote: The reason why I asked for numbers is to aid in the updating of the testing and commissioning that is being tracked at fixmetro.org/7000series. So far he has relied totally on media reports for information on the numbers of car on the property and or in service.
I chat with @FixMetro on Twitter a bunch, and all there are so far are media reports - without camping at Greenbelt to catch new trains in testing. WMATA themselves have acknowledge having trains in testing, but very little more than that.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by Sand Box John
 
"srepetsk"
I chat with @FixMetro on Twitter a bunch, and all there are so far are media reports - without camping at Greenbelt to catch new trains in testing. WMATA themselves have acknowledge having trains in testing, but very little more than that.

I happen to be in the right place at the right time when I saw them.

That being said, there in no need to camp at Greenbelt. If the folks that ride the system daily continued posting twits of their sitings of the 7k cars like they did during the sitings of the first set testing we would have an idea on how many are on the property and what their numbers are.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by YOLO
 
There are rumors that they will NOT opt to get all 748 cars anymore because of financial constraints. Might be looking at 528?

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by afiggatt
 
YOLO wrote:There are rumors that they will NOT opt to get all 748 cars anymore because of financial constraints. Might be looking at 528?
There is some clarification with regards to the plans to order the additional 220 7000 series cars in the Washington Post: Waiting for federal approval, Metro’s planned purchase of rail cars at risk. The plan is to replace all 192 Series 5000 cars, but WMATA needs the FTA to sign off on it. I would take what the Wash Post says with a large grain of salt because the Post's reporters have written confused or muddled articles before on the Metro.

Personally, I question the plan to replace the Series 5000 cars rather than to expand the fleet size because I think the WMATA board is over-reacting to the short term problems and is losing sight of the longer term considerations and plans. But I'm not on the board.

Excerpt from the Post article:
Metro’s plan to buy 220 additional state-of-the-art rail cars has hit a snag involving federal approval, meaning that it’s possible the purchase won’t happen, agency officials said Tuesday.

When Metro began planning six years ago to acquire a new generation of subway cars, known as the 7000 series, the goal was to buy 748 of them. So far, eight have been in passenger service since April 14 and 520 are on order.

The potentially deal-breaking snag involves how the remaining 220 cars would be used.

The plan is to retire 192 cars of the 5000 series, which were built in the early 2000s, and replace them with the technologically superior 7000-series cars, known as 7Ks.

This month, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s board of directors seemed ready to go ahead with the $431 million purchase of the 220 cars. But the older cars can’t be scrapped without the Federal Transit Administration’s approval. And the FTA has yet to announce a decision.

Federal money helped pay for the 5000-series cars (5Ks), which have years left on their designed life spans. If the FTA determines within the next several weeks that the 5Ks should not be retired so soon, Metro probably will forgo purchasing the 220 new cars, Mortimer L. Downey, the board’s chairman, said Tuesday.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by srepetsk
 
WMATA is eager to replace the 5000's as they have the second-lowest reliability in the fleet (https://wmata.com/about_metro/scorecard ... 4_2014.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) with a Rail Mean Distance Between Delays of 53,637mi, compared to 123,502mi of the 6000's (higher is better). The 2012 fleet management plan calls to grow the fleet up to ~1400 cars by 2018 (they have ~1100 currently) - https://wmata.com/business/procurement_ ... 20Plan.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - so they will certainly need to look at the tradeoffs. With the alternate plan now to only try and attain 50% 8-car trains they likely can cut down on the total number of cars needed and shift those to replacing the 5k's of which there are 192.

The purchase of all 748 cars is for:
-Dulles Corridor Rail Program Phase I: 64 cars
-Dulles Corridor Rail Program Phase II: 64 cars
-Replacements for the 1000-Series: 300 cars
-Replacements for the 4000-Series: 100 cars

-Fleet growth for 75% peak-period 8-car train operation: 130 cars
-Fleet growth for 100% peak-period 8-car train operation: 90 cars

The first 4 lines take priority, and that (coincidentally) matches up with the order of 528 cars currently purchased. Fleet growth up to 50% peak-period 8-car trains would be about ~70 cars give or take, so theoretically they could then get rid of most of the 5k's at that point. The plan though also calls for delivery of the 8000's to start in 2021, which enters the WMATA car replacement program calculus as well. At that point, all bets are off.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by Sand Box John
 
The FTA should not only say no to WMATA's decision to replace the 5k cars with 7k car but should say hell no.

Allow me to explain, As most here know, I have been saying for years that WMATA has had a rolling stock shortage sense the Yellow line was extended to Huntington back in December of 1983.

This schema perpetuates that rolling stock shortage.

WMATA need to expand the fleet as fast as they can to reduce the need to run the crap out of the limited number of cars they have to fill the daily time sheet.

Expanding the fleet make it possible to do routine maintenance in a timely manner as well as preventive maintenance, reduces the total annual mileage extending effective service life of the cars, provides a reserve of cars as back up in the event that a car in a train come up lame before leaving the yard and allow a sufficient number of cars to be available for revenue service while at the same time doing heavy overhaul work on others.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by justalurker66
 
If the 5000s are causing delays the system may be better off without them. One would need to do the math ... is it better to have failing equipment clogging up the line or reliable equipment?

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by Sand Box John
 
"justalurker66"
If the 5000s are causing delays the system may be better off without them. One would need to do the math ... is it better to have failing equipment clogging up the line or reliable equipment?

It's better to have reliable equipment. Problem is if you don't have enough of it to allow you to do routine and preventive maintenance in a timely manner you're going to see a lot of it broken down out on railroad.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by srepetsk
 
justalurker66 wrote:If the 5000s are causing delays the system may be better off without them. One would need to do the math ... is it better to have failing equipment clogging up the line or reliable equipment?
One item that I've seen brought up a few times is the potential effect of removing all 1000's on total fleet reliability. Removing all the 1000's would mean WMATA can get back to running single-type consists instead of having to belly the cars. I took a look but it doesn't appear WMATA has rail performance from pre-2009 before they had to start the practice so there aren't numbers to compare, unfortunately. If returning to single-type consists were to increase performance (for whatever reason) enough, I'd think the 5000-series retirement could be delayed enough to allow for the needed increase in total available cars.

Of course, any way forward is only doable with the delivery of the 7000's...which there is still only one train of in revenue service.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by Railfan24
 
John, the 5k cars have been problematic from the time they were delivered as you already know. But, why are they still so unreliable? It's hard to fathom that the Rohrs actually have a higher distance between failures average than the CAF cars.

I agree with you, though. The fact that WMATA is even entertaining scrapping cars with about 15 years of service is laughable. Rail cars are supposed to last for 35-40 years.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by YOLO
 
Junk the 5000 series, they are a giant piece of s**t. I'd rather have 748 7000 series rather than see 192 garbage cars rolling around.

You guys do realize that they are NOT going to expand the fleet no matter what happens? DC/MD won't let it happen. It's a lose lose either way, but with 5000 series gone we'd have much better hardware in service.

And lastly it looks like a 7000 series train will be entering service on the Red line very soon.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by Sand Box John
 
"Railfan24"
John, the 5k cars have been problematic from the time they were delivered as you already know. But, why are they still so unreliable? It's hard to fathom that the Rohrs actually have a higher distance between failures average than the CAF cars.

I agree with you, though. The fact that WMATA is even entertaining scrapping cars with about 15 years of service is laughable. Rail cars are supposed to last for 35-40 years.

The 1k have a lower distance between failures because they have been rehabilitated and WMATA has spent years doing other minor upgrades to increase their reliability.

At the very least WMATA should hold on to the 5 and 6k cars after procuring all of the 7k cars on the assumption that they can get the member jurisdictions at some future date to pony up the money to rehabilitate them to be 100 percent compatible with 7k cars. Making them compatible with 7k cars would make it possible to run 7k car in 6 car consists.

Side note, swung past Greenbelt Yard this evening. 12 7k cars were parked on the tracks 17, 18 and 19 adjacent to the commissioning building. was able to read the numbers on 2 of the 4 car sets, north to south track 17 7012-7013+7015-7014, tracks 18 7008-7009+7011-7010.

Car 6051 was parked alone north of shop on shop track 7.

All of the ties for the test track staged in the south kiss and ride lot are gone.

Re: WMATA 7000 Series to have CCTV, Electronic Maps

  by farecard
 
Sand Box John wrote:"Railfan24"
At the very least WMATA should hold on to the 5 and 6k cars after procuring all of the 7k cars on the assumption that they can get the member jurisdictions at some future date to pony up the money to rehabilitate them to be 100 percent compatible with 7k cars. Making them compatible with 7k cars would make it possible to run 7k car in 6 car consists.



Could WMATA pull them off WMATA trackage onto some unused railroad siding they rent? There seem to be lots of unused spurs around the country...
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