All Things WMATA 7000 Series

It seems that they've moved quite a few 7000-series off of the Red Line after the completion of SafeTrack. Prior to that the 7K's were almost to the point of saturation on the Red Line, with the older cars relatively rare. (I would maybe ride on one once every three weeks or so and a I ride twice daily). Now it seems that every other train is an older series, including a return of 6-car trains.

I noticed the change right after WMATA took 100% of 1K and 4K cars out of service. I've also noticed that mixing of series has stopped. At least for the past week or so, every train I see is made up of 100% the same series. Even the 2k cars all run together when they are identical to the 3k cars.

But I don't mind seeing less 7k's on the red line. Its a short term thing when you consider the fact that only half the fleet has been delivered and we still have another 350 or so 7k cars to come. Also, now that the 1k's and 4k's are gone along with the mixing.. I don't really care what kind of train I get anymore.

I've noticed that OR has a crap load of 7Ks running on it. SV trains do have some 7Ks but for the most part are 3Ks and 5Ks. Very little 6Ks on OR/SV, where did they go?

I see a lot of 6k's on the Green line and Yellow line. I think most of them are there now. Red line has been mostly 7k's and 3k's.

I noted a few sets each of 7k and 6k cars when driving past Alex Yard today, as well as an 8-car set of solid 3ks. Not sure which of those are more likely to roam Yellow or Blue.

YOLO wrote:I've noticed that OR has a crap load of 7Ks running on it. SV trains do have some 7Ks but for the most part are 3Ks and 5Ks. Very little 6Ks on OR/SV, where did they go?

I haven't ridden the Metrorail in ages, but judging from that fourth photo posted by dcmike, it looks like the Alstom cars are primarily on the Green line. I assume that picture was taken at the Greenbelt yard.

realtype wrote:It seems that they've moved quite a few 7000-series off of the Red Line after the completion of SafeTrack.

Not exactly by design but incidental.

The end of SafeTrack was also the end of the fiscal year. At the beginning of each new FY, service changes go in to effect and union personnel and equipment are redistributed around the system. All 7000 series cars were assigned to Shady Grove Yard for preventative maintenance through the end of the last FY. With the increasing number of 7000s in service, the work load had to be shared among the other yards. Every yard now has some 7000s assigned with the bulk remaining at Shady. New Carrollton has the next largest share.

The other significant change was that all Kawasaki rework operations (and there is quite a backlog) have moved from Shady Grove to the annex building at West Falls Church Yard. It’s good too see the WFC Annex finally in use as it at had been sitting idle since MWAA handed it over years ago.

Thanks for all the info. I started paying attention and i did notice that all of the "classic" cars on the Red Line are 3000 series. In fact I haven't seen a 6000-series on the Red Line in a long, long time.

Maybe this is a temporary fix for all of the vibration complaints on the GR tunnels. I think 6Ks will be mostly YL/GR, but I do see a few on OR as well

Now that WMATA has stopped mixing trains, there is no reason to have every series on every line anymore.

There was a time back in the 90's when you never saw a 1K series train on the Red line ever. Red line was strictly 2k, 3k and 4k. We are probably going back to a situation like that again. 7K's will probably be on every line because they will eventually be the majority of the fleet, but the "classics" will probably be assigned to certain lines only.

Metro is reporting that, a year ahead of schedule - 2019 vs 2020 - the entire order of 7000-series will have been delivered (all 748). http://wamu.org/story/17/08/01/7000-ser ... ess-story/

This is what happens when you combine good management with a good manufacturer.

Paul Wiedefeld is doing a great job and Kawasaki is a great manufacturer. Nice to see that Metro's darkest days are probably over. At least for now.

Now if Phase 2 of the Silver Line would open ahead of schedule, that might be grounds for a celebration.

Over 317,000 miles of mean distance between delays is a good stat right there. It's good to see Kawasaki delivering a high quality railcar as they always have.

did metro ever post a copy of this sign they put on the trains? trying to get a copy to put on my model, tried taking some pics of trains in service but quality is not great. http://i.imgur.com/8NvmJZu.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The LCD monitors in the 7000 series trains no longer have the "New train" promotional video. Now the video plays WMATA's "back2good" Youtube videos on a loop along with info on using WMATA apps and smart trip cards. Took long enough.

I'm expecting to see McDonald's commercials start showing up next. I would like to see weather reports and local news/events or useful travel information like the timetable for trains arriving at transfer stops.