Tag Archives: WMATA

WMATA’s Oldest Railcar Still Rolling Along

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WMATA Rohr 1000, the lowest numbered car in the Metrorail fleet, at Silver Spring Station, September 14, 2016

WMATA Rohr 1000, the lowest numbered car in the Metrorail fleet, at Silver Spring Station, September 14, 2016

Yesterday, I happened to catch a ride on board WMATA Rohr car number 1001.  Although it isn’t the lowest numbered railcar in the fleet (that distinction goes to its mate, car 1000), it was the first to be delivered to WMATA and as far as I’m concerned, it is therefore the oldest car in the WMATA fleet.

Unfortunately, since 2009, the 1000 Series cars no longer operate at the ends of trains, so getting photos of the front end in the “usual style” is no longer possible without yard access.  However, I did have the opportunity to ride both 1000 and 1001 prior to this policy change and also have photos of them at the front of trains.

As I wrote back when the first Rohr car was shipped off to Baltimore for scrapping, to my knowledge, there are no plans to preserve any of the Rohr cars.  I doubt anyone on board the train with me yesterday knew about the significance of the train they were on, but it remains my hope that someone has the good sense to preserve the 1000-1001 pair as it makes up a significant piece of Washington, DC’s transit history.

OTP Updated with New Sections, New Photos!

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Gillig Phantom 6031 on Bellefield Avenue at Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, November 27, 2015

Astute visitors to Oren’s Transit Page may have noticed that the July 2016 Bus Photo of the Month was from a city that had never been featured on this website before, nor had there been any announcement that a new section had been unveiled.  As is often the case, it took me a bit longer than I had hoped or planned, but I added a whole slew of new photos to Oren’s Transit Page last week and decided to feature one of the new photos as a photo of the month before the “public announcement” for the update.  Perhaps you discovered the new content via your own exploration, and perhaps not.  But either way, here is a fairly exhaustive (albeit not 100% complete) list of what got added in this update.

This update includes photos from two places I had never been before until recently.  The first new section is the Pittsburgh section.  I was in Pittsburgh for a few days in November of 2015 and while my transit riding was limited to a short jaunt on the light rail and a ride on the Duquesne Incline, I still got a decent number of photos of those modes and the local bus system’s colorful buses as well.  One of them was featured as the aforementioned Bus Photo of the Month for July.  I plan on using some upcoming “Viewfinder” features to share some of the stories behind the photos I took in the Steel City.

Orion VII 2010-06 on Paseo Gilberto Concepción De Gracia at the Covadonga Terminal, San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 21, 2016

The second new section isn’t just a new city but also marks the first time Oren’s Transit Page has photos from the Caribbean!  I was in Puerto Rico for a week in March and in addition to riding San Juan’s Tren Urbano, I also rode and got photos of the local bus system in San Juan, the Autoridad Metropolitana de Autobuses de Puerto Rico (AMA).

I spent about 48 hours in Amsterdam about a month ago, it was my first trip to the Netherlands since 2008.  Unlike my last trip, I didn’t travel to other cities in the country.  However, I still got plenty of photos of the various trams currently operating there, the new M5 Series cars on the Amsterdam Metro, and the city’s buses.  I also got some photos of Nederlandse Spoorwegen trains and the Thalys while on my way to and from the airport.

A number of pages within the Israel section are updated, with a handful of brand new additions in this part of the website, too.  You can find photos of the new MAN NL-323F and MAN NG-363F 5 door articulated buses in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  There are also new photos of Afikim, Metropoline and Kavim buses in the Tel Aviv area, and Egged intercity buses from throughout the country.  Of course, no update to the Israel section would be complete without an update to the Jerusalem Light Rail gallery, and a number of light rail photos from this update are also planned for upcoming Viewfinder features.  Last but certainly not least, there are also updates to the Israel Railways galleries.

Type 12G 819 on Damrak, Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 31, 2016

In an ongoing effort to make Oren’s Transit Page as accurate as possible, all references to WMATA’s New Flyer DE42LFA and DE62LFA buses have been updated to call these buses New Flyer DE40LFA and DE60LFA buses, respectively.  This is in order to have the captions on this site match the builder’s plates on board the buses. (It is acknowledged that other websites and internet sources refer to these buses by the former designations, and it is unlikely that the entire internet will coalesce around a single designation anytime soon.)  Additionally, some photos of MAN intracity buses in the Israel section that had been referred to as NL-313s have been corrected to be NL-323Fs for while the differences between these models are slight, they are different models and should be noted accordingly.

As I mentioned several times, I am planning to feature the stories behind a number of photos from this update in addition to older photos from throughout Oren’s Transit Page here on the Travelogue as part of the Viewfinder series.  In addition, I have several system reviews planned of cities I have been to recently.  Needless to say, you should be sure to check back for all that and more!  If you’re a fan of Oren’s Transit Page on Facebook, you’ll get site updates right in your news feed, so be sure to click “like” if that interests you!

Happy 40th Birthday to the DC Metrorail

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WMATA Rohr 1000, the lowest numbered car in the Metrorail fleet

The Washington, DC Metro opened on this date in 1976, 40 years ago today.  Over the years, Metro was the first or among the first transit systems in the United States to accomplish several things, such as automated trains, carpeted floors on the trains, and a variable fare scheme.  In addition, the high arched concrete vaults have become a symbol of Washington’s architecture.  Over the past 40 years, the system has been built out past its originally planned 101 miles with extensions to Largo and Reston, and a further extension to Dulles Airport and Loudoun County is now under construction.  The new 7000 series cars that are now being delivered will bring about the retirement of the 1000, 4000, and 5000 series cars.  However, despite the changes in the offing, Metro has established itself as a critical part of the DC area’s transportation network.  With it’s use by resident Washingtonians and visiting tourists alike, it truly is America’s subway.  Happy birthday Metro and here’s to the next 40 years!

Who Wants to Preserve a Piece of DC Transit History?

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Rohr 1000 Series car departing Grosvenor, April 10, 2000

As I wrote yesterday, the process of retiring and scrapping WMATA’s 40 year old 1000 Series railcars has started.  These cars were built by Rohr in the 1970s and have been carrying commuters and tourists alike since Metrorail opened on March 27, 1976.  They are my favorite WMATA rolling stock and I’ve known for some time that this event in their lives would arrive someday.

In the Washington Post story about the scrapping, Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel says “The 1Ks have served this region for four decades. . . . I think people will eventually look back on them the way people in other cities, with more mature transit systems, look back with delight on their historic rail cars.”  Unfortunately, Stessel is also quoted as saying that the agency has no plans to preserve any of the Rohrs.

Many transit agencies preserve retired equipment, perhaps most notably the New York City Transit Authority and Transport for London.  NYCTA operates a museum in an abandoned station in Brooklyn and runs some of the system’s retired trains several times a year.  The London Transport Museum is a major tourist attraction and features all sorts of buses and trains on static display.  The London museum also has an annex in Acton that houses more of the collection that is open to the public twice a year.  While this is the first time WMATA is retiring rail equipment, it has retired many buses over the years and preserves some of them in a historic fleet.  However, if Stessel’s vision that someday, Washingtonians look back fondly on the Rohrs is to be reality, the prospects are greatly improved if some of the cars are preserved.  Furthermore, scrapping an entire fleet of railcars is an irreversible decision that cannot be undone once all the cars are gone.

Thousands come out to ride the vintage train of 1930s equipment in New York City each December. Wouldn't it be great if WMATA could roll out the 1000 series for special occasions in the future, even after they are retired from regular service?

Thousands come out to ride the vintage train of 1930s equipment in New York City each December. Wouldn’t it be great if WMATA could roll out the 1000 series for special occasions in the future, even after they are retired from regular service?

I have spoken with some other transit fans in the DC area who are interested in seeing if there is some way that at least one pair of 1000 Series cars can be preserved.  Several ideas have been suggested for how to do this:

  1. Petition WMATA to consider keeping a pair or two for preservation purposes and run them on special occasions
  2. Work with a local museum (such as the National Capital Trolley Museum or the DMV Mass Transit Museum) to see if they can take the lead in working with WMATA to preserve a pair of 1000 Series cars (either as a part of their own collections or through some other sort of arrangement with WMATA)

There have been several threads and email discussions with preliminary thoughts on how to make this happen.  My idea is to try concentrating that discussion in a single place as people interested in this project come together, think of a strategy, and mobilize to make it happen.  It can be this website, or another if somewhere else makes more sense.

Do you have thoughts on either one of the ideas listed above, or a different suggestion?  Do you have a contact at WMATA, at one of the organizations listed above, or know of someone else who might be interested in this effort?  Do you have something else relevant to this conversation to add?  Might you be able to volunteer a bit of time here and there to help with this effort?  Do you know someone who might be interested in any of the previous questions with whom you could share this post?  Feel free to write a comment below, or e-mail me directly using this form.  I look forward to seeing what we can do with regards to this potential project!

The Beginning of the End for the WMATA 1000 Series

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A few weeks ago, I was alerted to a photo that had been posted on Flickr of WMATA Rohr 1013 at a scrapyard in Baltimore.  In other words, the retirement of WMATA’s oldest cars, the 1000 Series, has started nearly 40 years after these cars first entered service.  About a week ago, the Washington Post wrote an article describing the scrapping process, and I’ll offer my thoughts about that tomorrow.  For this post, I just wanted to share a photo that I took of car 1013 back on January 20, 2005 at Farragut North.  At the time, I didn’t think there was a whole lot that was particularly noteworthy about the photo.  It is a pretty standard photo taken of a train that is about to leave the station with a decent view of the station platform and vault as well.  Who knew this railcar would be among the first to be dispatched to the “great train yard in the sky?”

WMATA Rohr 1013 at Farragut North
January 20, 2005

Oren’s Reading List: A Look at DC’s Paper Farecard Designs

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dcmisc12As of this Sunday, March 6, WMATA will no longer accept paper farecards at its faregates. If you still have a paper farecard, you can trade it in at a farecard machine or Metro sales office over the next few months, but I suspect most of you reading this will prefer to keep them as souvineers. WTOP Radio put together a slideshow of some of the various designs that were used on the front of the farecards over the past 40 years, you can view it by clicking here.

How many of these designs do you remember? Do you still have any DC paper farecards that you do not plan to trade in?  Leave a comment and tell us!

Bus Photo of the Month: March 2016

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Neoplan AN460A 5319

Neoplan AN460A 5319

Location: 9th Street, NW at Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC
Operator of Vehicle:  Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Date of Photo: April 11, 2012

WMATA ordered 21 Neoplan AN460A buses to replace its aging MAN articulated fleet in 2003.  As of this writing, only three buses remain on the active roster, and these buses are not likely to be in revenue service.  With the impending retirement of these buses, WMATA’s articulated bus fleet will be entirely low floor, and the only remaining high floor buses will be the Orion Vs (that are also due for retirement soon).

WMATA’s previous experience with Neoplans was not great, and no orders were procured from that company for many years.  It is fair to say that the Neoplan artics performed better than the 9500 Series buses that WMATA had until the early 1990s.  However, the Neoplan artics operated on the heavy use Northern Division lines for their entire careers and only four buses of this type received a mid-life rehab.  As a passenger, I am not sorry to see these buses go to the big bus garage in the sky.  However, as a transit fan, I will remember the fast pickup these buses had when they first arrived and that they looked better with the “MetroLocal” scheme than most of the other buses in WMATA’s fleet in my opinion.

To see more photos of WMATA’s Neoplan AN460A buses, please click here.

Check back tomorrow to see the rail photo of the month for March 2016!

10 New DC Area Photos Added

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Last night, a handful of photos were added from the DC area to the WMATA Metrorail 6000 Series, WMATA Metrobus New Flyer DE42LFA Buses, WMATA Metrobus New Flyer DE60LFA Buses, WMATA Metrobus New Flyer XDE40 Buses, and WMATA 1997 Orion V Buses galleries.  In addition, there is a new photo in the Amtrak AEM-7 locomotive gallery.

New Arrivals

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Over the course of redesigning Oren’s Transit Page, I was also continuing to travel, take photos, and add them in to the queue to be included in the redesigned website once it launched.  Now that the redesigned website is here, keep reading to find out what new material was added in conjunction with the redesign.  This isn’t an exhaustive list but rather just the “highlights”, there is plenty of new content scattered around the whole site.

NABI 60-BRT 9574 on Main Street at Aliso Street
Los Angeles, CA
July 11, 2014

Starting off in the United States, I traveled to a number of places for the first time in my life in 2014.  I made a Midwest swing in May 2014 that resulted in the creation of sections for Minneapolis-St. Paul (just prior to the Green Line opening) and Kansas City.  After that, in July 2014, I did some long distance Amtrak travel (with some flights in between) and visited Los Angeles and San Diego for the first time.  Also on this trip were stops in Denver (in time for the soft reopening of Denver’s Union Station), Chicago, and San Francisco.  I had passed through Denver before but I had never used or photographed its mass transit prior to that summer.  The stops in Chicago and San Francisco were my first in each city since 2007 and were quite brief, but there are new photos in those sections as well, including my first photos of the CTA 5000 Series cars.

The Washington, DC section now includes photos of some of the newer buses to ply the region’s streets, such as WMATA’s New Flyer XDE40 buses and Ride On’s Gillig Advantage/CNG buses.  On the rail side of things, there is now a gallery for photos of the new WMATA 7000 Series railcars, manufactured by Kawasaki.

PCC 3263 at Capen Street
Milton, MA
May 2, 2011

I last traveled to Philadelphia in 2012 and was able to get a last round of Silverliner II and Silverliner III photos, in addition to my first Silverliner V photos.  I made two trips to Boston, one in 2011 and the other in 2013.  On the 2011 trip, I rode the southern end of the Orange Line for the first time, and both trips included a number of trips on the Green Line and Red Line.  I also was able to get photos from along the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line right of way and of various MBTA buses, including the trackless trolleys, in Cambridge.  Finally, for the first time since Oren’s Transit Page’s initial launch over 15 years ago, there are new photos in the Atlanta section.

There are also new photos from New York City, but due to the immense size of that section, it was decided to leave it “as is” in the old format and add the new photos to the Uncaptioned Photos gallery for now.  The New York section will be updated with the new design as soon as possible.

North of the border, there is a new section for photos from Niagara Falls, Ontario.  My only trip to South America to date was in 2010 so there isn’t anything new in the Brazil and Argentina sections (while Buenos Aires is on my bucket list, I haven’t found the occasion to get myself down there just yet).

Crossing the ocean to Europe, I visited both Hungary and Portugal for the first time.  My stop in Budapest was a layover between flights in 2011 that was measured in hours rather than days, but it was enough time to photograph some of the city’s trams, buses, and trolleybuses and whet my appetite for another trip there that will be longer 13 hours. I spent almost a full week in Lisbon, a city that shares many similarities to San Francisco including the fact that its trams are a tourist attraction in and of themselves, and visited continental Europe’s westernmost bus stop for good measure.

Bombardier Flexity Outlook “Cityrunner” 3069 at Place Royale
Brussels, Belgium
November 21, 2013

In 2008, I unexpectedly found myself with 90 minutes in Brussels due to a missed train connection, which was just enough time to get some transit photos before the next train to my destination came.  In 2013, I was in Brussels yet again, this time for a full 8 hours between flights, so that section has seen some additional expansion including a new gallery for photos of the Belgian National Railway.

Finally, in the Middle East, the Israel section has expanded further and to my knowledge, Oren’s Transit Page’s Israel section is the largest of its kind on any English language website.  The Jerusalem Light Rail opened to passengers just after I began the long process of overhauling the website, so many photos of revenue service along the length of the entire line are now included on the site.  The Metronit bus rapid transit system in the Haifa region opened in 2014, and there are also photos of that.  In addition, there are many new photos of the many bus operators that operate throughout the entire length of the country.

I hope you enjoy exploring the site, whether you choose to browse the new sections, old sections, or a mix of both!  And if you have a favorite section, let everyone know what it is in the comment section below!