The 1992 Orion Vs never made a huge impression on me from what I can remember, but I was drawn to the 1997 Orion Vs due to the fact they were the first buses to be delivered in the “fourth scheme” livery and the first buses to have CleverDevices that made automated announcements in advance of each stop. The 1997 Orion Vs also had Vultron flip dot LED destination signs that really made these buses stand out for the brief period the signs worked well (WMATA ultimately replaced the Vultron signs with orange LED destination signs on these buses). Once on board, the 1997 Orion Vs (and subsequent orders) also featured seats far more comfortable than any of the seats on the Flxible Metro buses in the WMATA fleet at that time.
Reflecting their “workhorse” status, the Orion Vs outlasted several other newer buses in the fleet. In the mid-to-late 2010s, the Orion Vs became harder to find, yet they had a tendency to resurface when there were equipment shortages or other circumstances that stretched the fleet thin. For example, the Orion Vs came out in full force when the 2014 NABI 42-BRT Hybrid Buses were pulled from service due to various safety concerns.
On July 15, 2019, I had an appointment near the Tenleytown Metro at 8:20 AM and then another appointment on K Street near Washington Circle at 10:30 AM. I had originally planned to take the Red Line to get between these appointments, but while I was on my way to the first one, I saw an Orion V heading inbound on Wisconsin Avenue. WMATA’s real time arrival tracker (BusETA) shows the vehicle number of each bus it tracks, so I was able to see that this was Orion V 2160 and it was operating on the 37, a peak directional route with inbound service in the morning rush hour and outbound service in the evening rush hour. This means that after a bus arrives at Archives and completes an inbound 37 trip in the morning, it deadheads (operates not in service) back to Friendship Heights and then does another inbound 37 trip.
When my 8:20 appointment finished, I went outside and saw that 2160 was going to operate the final inbound 37 trip for that morning’s rush hour. A quick check of the timetable showed that waiting the 20 or so minutes for 2160 to reach me and taking the bus as opposed to Metrorail would still get me to my next appointment on time, so I decided to do that, knowing full well this could very well be my last ride on a WMATA Orion V.
This was not my first time on an Orion V on the “even 30s” routes (as I and others who remember when Wisconsin Avenue was served by the 30, 32, 34, and 36) by any means. The seats were worn and sagged a bit when people sat down on them. The CleverDevice worked intermittently. I recall the bus engine showing its age and straining at times. But the feel of being on a high floor Orion bus with the wood interior panels and all the other trappings I associated with these buses for so many years was nonetheless familiar.
I disembarked on Pennsylvania Avenue at 21st Street, where I had the sun mostly to my back and was able to get a few quick shots of the bus on my iPhone before it pulled off. I’ve seen WMATA Orion Vs on various occasions since that morning. Some were in revenue service, others were operating on employee shuttles between Montgomery Division and various driver relief points, mostly at the Silver Spring Metro. As time went on, WMATA Orion V sightings began to fall solely in the latter group. I’m not aware of an “official” retirement date for the WMATA Orion V fleet, but the consensus of the transit fan community is that they are not going to run in revenue service again. With a year having gone by since my last ride on one, a host of theories as to why they are not to be operated in revenue service anymore, and the ongoing service reductions due to WMATA’s Covid-19 response, I have no expectations of ever doing so again, and am glad my schedule and the timing of things worked out so I could have one final ride last summer.
