WMATA unveils new 7000-series cars

Officials from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and other government agencies marked the arrival of the first new rail car prototypes for the Metrorail system.

The four new cars will be part of a fleet of more than 500 new cars made in the United States that are designed to provide a safer, more comfortable ride for millions of passengers and expand the Metrorail system’s capacity, FTA officials said in a press release.

The FTA provided more than $100 million toward the purchase.

The new 7000-series rail cars will be deployed throughout Metrorail’s system, including on the new Silver Line as it expands to serve Dulles International Airport. They will replace all 300 of the Metrorail 1000-series cars that have been in service for 40 years, which will fulfill a key safety recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) following the fatal Metrorail accident at Fort Totten Station in June 2009.

"Modernizing the Metrorail system is essential to making it both safer and more reliable – and that’s especially important as WMATA continues to expand through projects like the Silver Line," said FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff.

Rogoff toured the cars at Metrorail's Greenbelt Station along with U.S. Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.); U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Donna Edwards (D-Md.), and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman.