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| PHOTOS: METRO 2K (1644791) | |||
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PHOTOS: METRO 2K |
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Posted by Jersey Mike on Fri Oct 31 15:40:49 2025 Before Washington DC Metro operator WMATA realized it could scam the Federal Government into purchasing new equipment, they did the sensible thing and performed mid-life overhauls on its classes of equipment with the goal of a 40 year service life. It is in this context that WMATA's 76 2000-series cars, delivered in 1981 by Brea Iron Road Construction, managed to avoid the early retirement dealt out to the 4000 and 5000 series cars. Despite the class' small numerical size, WNATA pulled out all the stops to celebrate their final day of service with a special set making Green Line trips between Greenbelt and Branch Ave on Saturday, October 19th, 2024. I went out that day and managed to collect a modest set of photos and video ( mirror ) documenting the festivities.Like the famous NYCTA Holiday Nostalgia Train, the 2k Farewell Train consisted of a full 6 car set of 2000-series cars and would run in regular service all day between Greenbelt and Branch Ave. Here the set pulls into the Greenbelt platform from the yard.   Also unlike some other farewell trips, WMATA managed to dig out the class pair, #2000 and #2001, to lead the consist in the southbound direction. Each of the 6 cars also had special last ride decals applied behind the cab windows and WMATA even managed to get ahold of the operator who operated the 2000 series cars on their first revenue run to conduct a round trip on their final run. Talk about closure!    Metro's 350 Rohr-built 1000-series cars from 1976 had been the first to be rebuilt in the mid-1990's, with an AC traction setup being the major change. The 2000-series cars went to Alstom for their rebuild around the year 2000 where they also received mew interior fittings that replaced the largely orange 1970's seat cushions with a contemporary light blue and also replaced the carpeting with a washable epoxy floor material.  The Green Line runs parallel to the former B&O Washington Branch with speeds up to 70mph, so with much of the rest of the route in a tunnel I took the opportunity to grab some head end video between Greenbelt and Hyattsville and later while approaching Branch Ave. Unfortunately an adjacent railfan who was also taking video had decided to test their voiceover chops instead of allowing the cars to speak for themselves. With the growing popularity of transit and urbanism on Youtube and social media, the enthusiasts came out of the woodwork to both meet their favourite content creators and perhaps generate their own. Here we see the crowd of fans gathered for an official group photo by the #2000 car.  The other cars in the consist consisted of #2038/2039 and #2058/2059.   I even made sure to capture video of the inter-car movement as the train proceeded back towards DC. Since my first ever ride on Metro started from the Anacostia station as part of a Boy Scout trip in the early 1990's when the stop served as the Green Line's southern terminus, I popped out to get a photo of the farewell train at the platform.  Emerging from the subway I got some additional video covering the portion between College Park and Greenbelt. An issue related to some weekend single tracking almost forced the trip to short turn at west Hyattsville, but it was cleared up and we proceeded to Greenbelt. The farewell set was scheduled to run all day, but I had to get back home after the first round trip. Here we see #2000 back at Greenbelt with the railfans discharging to get more photos.  The 70's DC Metro railcar end design has really held up well over the years and its a shame that WMATA chose to move to a blander stainless steel concept.  Metro loves performing maintenance on weekends and an MoW vehicle was taking up the second track at the Greenbelt station.  With only one track in service there was no way for the farewell train to linger beyond the next scheduled departure. As an aside here are some unrelated photos of a MARC Camden Line train with cab car #7759 and Mp36PH-3C making a station stop at Dorsey.   In conclusion, it was wonderful that WMATA put together this event after both the 4000 and 5000 series cars were unceremoniously hustled out of service due to growing reliability problems and WMATA's general retrenchment in the 2010's. I assume the still numerous 3000-series will likely get a similar sendoff when the 8000-series is fully delivered. |
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