(Photo by Jeffrey)

One of Metro’s supposedly retired 5000-Series trains. (Photo by Jeffrey)

October 12 ushered in a new era for WMATA and its—dwindling—ridership: the 5000-series railcars were finally retired.

At least, that’s what was supposed to happen.

That morning, Metro announced to much fanfare that it was retiring the 5000-series cars after the end of the day, replacing them with newer 7000-series trains. (You might know the 5000-series cars as the ones with carpeting.) The transit agency has already retired previous fleets, like the 1000-series and 4000-series cars. A Metro spokesperson told NBC Washington that the 5000 series were among the least reliable cars the agency has run.

“On average, a 7000-series railcar is five times more reliable than a 5000-series, in terms of distance traveled before encountering a failure,” the representative said. Refurbished 2000, 3000, and 6000-series cars were still slated to be in operation, in addition to the 7000-series, according to the outlet.

A small group of people were nostalgic at the thought that they might never ride another 5000. That is, until it became clear that eagle-eyed passengers were still spotting 5000-series trains all over the place.

Eventually the transit agency hopped on Twitter, seemingly just as confused as the rest of us about where, why, and how 5000-series trains were still delivering passengers to their destinations.

Plenty of angry passengers used this opportunity to express their general displeasure with the agency’s management of the system (in case you haven’t heard, we would like hot yoga in rail cars and artisanal charcuterie samples at the stations).

DCist has reached out to WMATA to try to figure out what’s going on here, and will update when we hear back.

This isn’t the first time the agency has experienced some drama surrounding its rail car series. As recently as August, a report found that wiring on all the new 7000-series cars needed to be reinspected. WMATA has also faced safety concerns around the missing barriers between 7000-series cars meant to alert the visually impaired that the space is not an open Metro door.

That’s not to mention the trouble with its older cars: once, a door opened while a 4000-series car (long considered the least reliable fleet in the system) was in motion. Its 1000-series trains were found to be particularly vulnerable to serious damage in crashes after a 2009 crash that killed nine people.

Meanwhile, Metro has already started procurement for its 8000-series cars.

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