WMATA Additions

For a few years now, it's been suggested that more than just two Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) cars had been set aside for preservation by that system. The first two, from the system's original 1000-series order for cars, I knew about; but the 4000- and 5000-series had also been retired and, supposedly, the first pair from each series had been retained. However, evidence of this that I could find consisted of less-than-dependable sources - mostly random forum posts and Wikipedia. But, that's now changed! I found this WMATA fleet management plan from 2021 online.

Between that document and this 2021 Greenbelt Yard inspection form, which confirms car numbers, I can confidently add four more WMATA cars to the PNAERC list. Cars 4000 and 4001 were built in 1991 by Breda, and are the first cars on the PNAERC list to have been built by that company. As near as I can tell, they never went through a major overhaul like the 1000-series cars did and were the last cars on the system with DC traction motors. They were retired in 2017. Cars 5000 and 5001 were built a decade later, in 2001, and ran for just 17 years before retirement in 2018. These were the first cars built new for WMATA with AC traction motors, and like the 4000-series cars, went until retirement without a heavy overhaul. They're the first cars on the PNAERC list built by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, better known as CAF, which worked with a local firm called AAI Corporation to built and assemble them. They are now the newest cars on the PNAERC list, beating out NJT 4424 by a full five years.

This brings the WMATA historic fleet on PNAERC to six cars and brings the total size of the list up to 2,094 cars. But wait, there's more! WMATA announced just a couple of months ago that it is retiring its 2000-series cars, which were built in the early 1980s by Breda and overhauled in the early 2000s, and saving a pair. The fleet management plan linked earlier also suggests that the system plans to keep the first two cars of each order, suggesting cars 2000 and 2001 have been - or will be - set aside. Can anyone confirm that these two cars are indeed in the plan and whether or not they've already been put out to pasture at Greenbelt Yard? (By the way, post-retirement photos of any of the WMATA historic cars would be very much appreciated; I haven't found a decent photo of a single one of them since retirement. The photo at the top of this post is a random in-service shot I found online.)