WMATA - Fleet of the Future Expo

From March 20 to April 3, Metro is hosting a "Fleet of the Future" Expo on the National Mall where visitors will be able to see Metro's upcoming 8000-series trains via a mock up. https://www.wmata.com/about/news/The-fu ... l-Mall.cfm. As Metro explains, the mock up will not be full scale (i.e., 2 cars connected via a gangway) or include every feature of the final 8000-series railcars. The mock up "has manual doors, no heated floors, stickers will be used in some places instead of digital displays, the lighting will be different, and the seats will be molded instead of fabric."

As Metro goes on to note, this is the first time it has done something like this since 1968 when the 1000-series mock up was displayed around the DMV.

I really hope these are serialized better than the 7000s, where they only display the train number on the emergency exit doors internally, but i’m verry excited for this!!

Do you mean the car number? Each car's number is prominently displayed on the outside as well. But if you mean in an emergency, then yes there is not a lot of signage inside each railcar showing what number it is.

Prime
I really hope these are serialized better than the 7000s, where they only display the train number on the emergency exit doors internally, but i’m verry excited for this!! :-D

The reason why car number displayed in the interior of the car is on the the bulkhead door is because it is adjacent to the intercom.

The 1k cars when delivered new from Rohr had no car numbers displayed in the interior of the cars.

I went down to the Mall this past weekend (03 30 2024) to see the mock up of the 8k cars.

First off I am not sold on the necessity of needing open gangways as Metrorail's passenger capacity issue would be better solved procuring more cars to increase the overall size of the fleet.

I am told he mock up of the open gangway is not the final design. The diaphragm in the open gangway occupies more floor space at the car ends then if were not there at all. The layout also incorporates equipment cabinets that will contain the various hardware for the operation of the trains. In the final design the foot print of equipment cabinets might be less. The cars will also have a larger number of information displays. Being the geezer that I am, I see this as nothing more then eye candy the does nothing to improve the actual operation of the trains, for younger people I see it as nothing more the technology crutch. WMATA claims it "improves the user experience".

Fleet Of The Future

It is important note the this is just a mock-up and the final design will be different from the mock-up.
I thought the 8000 series were going to start arriving in 2025.
We can't continue to use the 3000 series in 2026/2027 as they are too old and being more unreliable. They should be retired by 2025 as they reach 40 years old

Sand Box John wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2024 6:44 am I went down to the Mall this past weekend (03 30 2024) to see the mock up of the 8k cars.

First off I am not sold on the necessity of needing open gangways as Metrorail's passenger capacity issue would be better solved procuring more cars to increase the overall size of the fleet.

I am told he mock up of the open gangway is not the final design. The diaphragm in the open gangway occupies more floor space at the car ends then if were not there at all. The layout also incorporates equipment cabinets that will contain the various hardware for the operation of the trains. In the final design the foot print of equipment cabinets might be less. The cars will also have a larger number of information displays. Being the geezer that I am, I see this as nothing more then eye candy the does nothing to improve the actual operation of the trains, for younger people I see it as nothing more the technology crutch. WMATA claims it "improves the user experience".

Fleet Of The Future