According to Thursday's Post article about the 4000 series, after Metro finishes retiring the 1000 and 4000 series this year, they will next start retiring the 5000 series. This probably won't begin until 2018.
Metro bought the 5000 series from CAF in the year 2000 to add to the fleet. However, they've been so problematic, that instead of giving them a mid-life overhaul, they've decided to retire them early.
Metro has had problems with them since they were new. You could call them lemons. Maybe it was a mistake to buy them from a Spanish company who had never built railcars for an american transit agency before. Plus Metro did not take advantage of the new technology - automatic station stop announcements (and yes they existed in 2000 because MARC and VRE had them on new Kawasaki railcars back then)
This means 600 cars will be replaced by the 7000 series: 300 1K cars, 100 4K cars and 200 5K cars. This about half the fleet.
Did you like the 500 series cars?
Metro bought the 5000 series from CAF in the year 2000 to add to the fleet. However, they've been so problematic, that instead of giving them a mid-life overhaul, they've decided to retire them early.
Metro has had problems with them since they were new. You could call them lemons. Maybe it was a mistake to buy them from a Spanish company who had never built railcars for an american transit agency before. Plus Metro did not take advantage of the new technology - automatic station stop announcements (and yes they existed in 2000 because MARC and VRE had them on new Kawasaki railcars back then)
This means 600 cars will be replaced by the 7000 series: 300 1K cars, 100 4K cars and 200 5K cars. This about half the fleet.
Did you like the 500 series cars?