Rohr 1000

Location: Friendship Heights Station, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: September 11, 2002

In just a few weeks, Metrorail will be marking its 50th anniversary.  The first segment of Washington, DC’s subway opened on March 27, 1976 between Rhode Island Avenue and Farragut North.  Lots has changed since then.  Fifty years ago, the Rhode Island Avenue station functioned as a park and ride; none of the current development around the station existed.  The New York Avenue infill station (or Noma-Gallaudet if you prefer the official name) also didn’t exist and wasn’t included in the original system plans, but it was the 7th busiest station in terms of average daily entries in calendar year 2025.  Gallery Place didn’t even open as planned on March 27 due to a lawsuit about the lack of an elevator at the station, and the Capital One Arena (formerly Verizon Center and MCI Center) wouldn’t become a catalyst for development in that neighborhood until two decades after the station opened.  Metro Center as a naming concept for the area around the station was brand new, as the name for the station was established when then General Manager Jackson Graham gave a planner 20 seconds to propose a better name than “12th & G”.  These are just a handful of examples of how Metrorail changed various parts of DC in the past five decades, and additional examples can be found at many of the other 86 stations that have opened in the subsequent five decades.  

The original 1000 Series cars that operated on the Red Line on its inaugural day have all been retired and all but two have been scrapped.  One of the preserved cars is this one, numbered 1000, the “A Car” in the first pair to be delivered to Metro property from Rohr Industries in 1974 (its mate, car 1001, was actually delivered first however).  This photo of car 1000 was taken about 18 months after Metro’s 25th anniversary, when all of the Rohr cars received a plaque on the front of the car indicating they were the original 300 cars to serve the Metrorail system.  

As of this writing, it is not known what Metro plans to do to mark the 50th anniversary of Metrorail’s opening, but I hope they do more than they did for the 50th anniversary of Metrobus in 2023, when the largest celebration seemed to be special headsigns on the buses.  

For more photos of the WMATA 1000 Series railcars, please click here.