by Sand Box John
John in the sand box of Maryland's eastern shore.
Railroad Forums
Moderators: mtuandrew, therock, Robert Paniagua
Sand Box John wrote: 1013 at United Iron & Metal, Inc. BaltimoreIs there anything at all that would be worth salvaging in these things? Something that Metro could reuse in other railcars (perhaps the seats as an example), or is this just a pile of scrap metal and trash?
Chris Brown wrote:Well, its obvious that the brakes are gone and possibly the wheels too.Well, if there are 10 7000-series trains in service, that's 80 new cars available for revenue service. So, Metro can begin scrapping up to 80 of the roughly 300 1000-series cars still on site. 80 is not 300, but it's close to 100 and that's 1/3 of the 1000-series fleet. So, progress.
With the 7k's coming so slow I didn't expect them to start scrapping these until maybe the end of summer at the earliest.
MACTRAXX wrote:SBJ and Everyone:Eloquently put at the end. How would things be different in this region if not for Metro? Surely no one can say things would be better without it?
The photograph of the 1000 series Metro car being shipped out reminds me of other Metro cars being delivered
in a similar manner built new. Enough time has passed since these original Rohr cars were built to now note that
they are now being retired. Hopefully the new 7000 series cars do become worthy replacements for older cars.
With the 40th Anniversary of the first Red Line Metro section (Rhode Island Avenue-Farragut North) opening next
month (3/27/1976) will Metro commemorate this anniversary in any manner? Will any of the 1000 series original
cars be used for any special services? Can Metro put together a historic train or contribute to an ouside exhibit?
In this past 40 years not only has the originally proposed system been built there are now new lines being added
such as the well-covered Silver Line to Dulles Airport. Metrorail has become second in ridership to only the NYC
Subway in daily weekday use numbers. Despite problems that have been discussed here at Railroad.net for the
most part Metro has been successful. How would life in the Washington area be had the Metrorail system not
been constructed? Overall mass transit in the Washington-Baltimore region has changed dramatically over the
course of the same 40 years following the regional growth patterns offering better areawide transit options.
MACTRAXX
JDC wrote:Well, I think its more complex than that. When the Silver line opened it stretched out the fleet and didn't allow Metro to have enough "spare" cars on site. On top of that, it lead to less time for fleet maintenance which ultimately caused Metro's fleet to become significantly less reliable.. causing many breakdowns in 2015. The Silver line required at least 64 rail cars. So, with 80 of the 7k's on site.. 64 of those are needed to have enough cars for the system. This means Metro really has only 16 new rail cars available to replace 1k's.Chris Brown wrote:Well, its obvious that the brakes are gone and possibly the wheels too.Well, if there are 10 7000-series trains in service, that's 80 new cars available for revenue service. So, Metro can begin scrapping up to 80 of the roughly 300 1000-series cars still on site. 80 is not 300, but it's close to 100 and that's 1/3 of the 1000-series fleet. So, progress.
With the 7k's coming so slow I didn't expect them to start scrapping these until maybe the end of summer at the earliest.
Chris Brown wrote:So, with 80 of the 7k's on site.. 64 of those are needed to have enough cars for the system. This means Metro really has only 16 new rail cars available to replace 1k's.And not really even that. At least 22 vehicles have been decommissioned and 22 others accident-damaged. So the 7Ks need to plug these holes first before replacing cars.
srepetsk wrote:You would think so, but I wonder if Metro is just extremely eager to a) have more reliable trains in service, even if there are less overall trains running, and b) to be able to close the NTSB requirement that it ditch the 1000-series. So, maybe it might make sense to wait, but I bet there is incredible pressure to have them gone before we reach the 10-year anniversary of the Ft. Totten crash.Chris Brown wrote:So, with 80 of the 7k's on site.. 64 of those are needed to have enough cars for the system. This means Metro really has only 16 new rail cars available to replace 1k's.And not really even that. At least 22 vehicles have been decommissioned and 22 others accident-damaged. So the 7Ks need to plug these holes first before replacing cars.
JDC wrote:Note, we don't even have reliability data for the 7Ks yet. It was supposed to be out in February, but they pushed the release of the Vital Signs report to March.srepetsk wrote:You would think so, but I wonder if Metro is just extremely eager to a) have more reliable trains in service, even if there are less overall trains running, and b) to be able to close the NTSB requirement that it ditch the 1000-series. So, maybe it might make sense to wait, but I bet there is incredible pressure to have them gone before we reach the 10-year anniversary of the Ft. Totten crash.Chris Brown wrote:So, with 80 of the 7k's on site.. 64 of those are needed to have enough cars for the system. This means Metro really has only 16 new rail cars available to replace 1k's.And not really even that. At least 22 vehicles have been decommissioned and 22 others accident-damaged. So the 7Ks need to plug these holes first before replacing cars.