All Things WMATA 7000 Series

[Sand Box John]

"davinp"

It seems Metro put most of the 7000 series in MD on the Green & Red lines and dumped the old cars to Virginia on OR/SV/BL lines.
That's not fair Virginia gets stuck with more of the old cars.

Likely because those lines are closer the Greenbelt primary maintenance facility. Greenbelt will find itself sharing that distinction with Dulles Yard when it opens with phase II of the Tysons, Dulles, Ashburn N Route Silver line.

Also, why is Metro putting 8 car trains of old cars together?

Because they can.

I thought only the 7000 series were supposed to be 8 cars, not the 6000 or 3000 series which I've been seeing lately.

To my knowledge there is no policy restricting the dispatching 8 car trains composed of aluminum rolling stock.

[YOLO]

BTW they still mix rail cars if they have to

[davinp]

This afternoon on an Orange Line the automated system would say "This is a 7000 series train" at every train.
Apparently, the train didn't know what line it was on

[Sand Box John]

"davinp"
This afternoon on an Orange Line the automated system would say "This is a 7000 series train" at every train.
Apparently, the train didn't know what line it was on

I have read posts elsewhere that state that announcement is being made by k7s everywhere. Speculation is it has something to do with the between cars handicap safety barriers.

[Chris Brown]

Interesting tidbit from the replies in Twitter:

@railtransitops: The noise issue was fixed with a redesign of the wheel angle in relation to the rails. ~RB

There's more in the report that came from. The 7ks were delivered with a wheel flange angle of 63 degrees; Metro's standard is 70. They've been truing them all to 70-degrees since delivery, so you may have already noticed the change.

If 70-degrees was in the specs why did Kawasaki manufacturer them with 63-degrees?

[JDC]

This extensive post on GGW confirms that the new (and temporary) announcements "This is a 7000 series train" are intended to advise visually impaired riders because of the rubber barrier vs chain barrier issue. The article also mentions that due to a soldering issue, Metro is not accepting 7000-series cars from the Nebraska factory and has not since May. https://ggwash.org/view/68370/metro-reasons-new-7000-series-railcar-deliveries-are-on-hold

[KTHW]

Looks like some 7k trains got new hazard markings between their A-A cars on top of the black rubber bumbpers. I saw two trains this morning on the blue line with them

[daybeers]

Can you elaborate? Were these just visual? If so, that doesn't even serve as a temporary fix.

[KTHW]

Yes the bright reflective stickers are just a visual aid to go with the new 7000 announcement. If they plan to replace the bumpers with chains, I’m sure this is just to get a prolonged waiver from the FRA. Since Kawasaki is seeing a shortage of parts I’m not sure why else WMATA can do.

[daybeers]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was just WMATA.

[davinp]

Looks like some 7k trains got new hazard markings between their A-A cars on top of the black rubber bumbpers. I saw two trains this morning on the blue line with them

Yes, I saw that on Monday that the 7000 series cars had bright reflective orange stripes on the barriers between the cars. Previously there were just black barriers. That is new this week. These are the cars that have barriers sticking to the sides of the railcars, not the ones with chains

[Sand Box John]

"davinp"
Yes, I saw that on Monday that the 7000 series cars had bright reflective orange stripes on the barriers between the cars. Previously there were just black barriers. That is new this week. These are the cars that have barriers sticking to the sides of the railcars, not the ones with chains

What I find amusing is they can't even apply the chevrons correctly:

‘This is a 7000 Series Train’: Metro’s latest responses to safety concerns for visually impaired riders\
Max Smith
WTOP 103.5 FM
07 30 2018 2:31 PM

The right one is correct the left one is incorrect.

Notice the direction the chevrons are directing traffic to:
http://epg.modot.org/files/thumb/b/b5/6 ... RDRAIL.jpg
https://www.baybridgeinfo.org/sites/def ... Berger.jpg

[davinp]

Breaking News: Metro must take all 548 7K series out of service to repair wiring. They will probably do it in phases

WMATA's Resident Inspectors say they discovered wire crimping defects in the cars that will take one year to fix

https://wjla.com/news/local/metro-take- ... fix-wiring

[Sand Box John]

I don't recall if it was mentioned here but WMATA stopped taking delivery of the 7k cars back in May because of this issue.

The issue has to do with continuity at wiring connections that could result in premature failure causing a great deal of time to be spent troubleshooting to find the broken connection.

It should be noted that this more of a performance and reliability problem then a safety problem.

[srepetsk]

Breaking News: Metro must take all 548 7K series out of service to repair wiring. They will probably do it in phases

WMATA's Resident Inspectors say they discovered wire crimping defects in the cars that will take one year to fix

https://wjla.com/news/local/metro-take- ... fix-wiring

Max at WTOP has a good write-up of this issue today: https://wtop.com/tracking-metro-24-7/20 ... -replaced/

There won't be any impact to rail service; the 7K facility at Greenbelt will have cars cycled through for the inspection/repair necessary, and I think they can only hold 8 cars at a time.