Read more coverage on the Silver Line

It was a scene of jubilation, excitement, and relief.

Decades after it was planned – and four years after it was supposed to open – riders got their first chance to ride the Silver Line to Dulles International Airport and beyond to Ashburn in Loudoun County.

It was a wholesome scene with grandparents bringing excited kids, babies taking their first Metro ride and rail superfans shooting videos out the window and loving every minute.

Riders held pennants declaring “Grand Opening 2022” with the names of the six new stations: Reston Town Center, Herndon, Innovation Center, Dulles International Airport, Loudoun Gateway, and Ashburn. Public officials cut four ribbons with another event scheduled for Friday morning.

“I’m just gonna say, hands down, as a new general manager, this has been my favorite day,” Metro head Randy Clarke told a group of 100 riders who won special “silver tickets” to ride the first train before the general public. He’s been on the job just four months. “Look at the reaction people are having. I love seeing people happy.

“They’ve been waiting for this for decades so I’m just really proud of our team to be out here delivering this today.”

For the moment, all the delays, all the cost overruns, all the times Metro left them waiting on a platform for an unforeseen delay, were in the far corners of riders’ minds — especially the 100 riders who rode a private train for contest winners Tuesday morning.

Miles Irby, a kid from Bowie who has memorized the entire Metro map, was one of them.

“Miles has been a huge Metro fan since he’s been a tiny kid,” his mom, Elle Irby said. “He’s even helped tourists figure out where to go before. So it seemed appropriate (to bring him).

“Six new stops now?” she asked.

“Yep!” Miles replied.

Zach Israel of D.C. brought his six-month-old baby, Milo, for his first Metro ride.

“We’re just very excited to take it,” said Israel, who serves as an ANC commissioner in Ward 4. Milo even got a selfie with Clarke.

Christina Isakson, who lives in Loudoun, brought her son Eric, who loves taking Metro. For her, it’s about convenience.

“It’s peaceful,” she said. It’s nice and hopefully, we’ll be able to take it out of Ashburn and don’t have to drive and park because you get tired of that.”

Cecilia Brown worked at TSA at Dulles Airport until she transferred to Tampa, but now she’s back living in Herndon to be close to family. She remembers driving into work, parking in an employee lot, and taking a shuttle to the terminal. Sometimes she’d have to leave an hour before her shift starts to make it. She hopes the train will be a much more convenient option for her.

“I used to walk [past the station] all the time. And I saw this whole thing, and I’m like, ‘when is it going to be done? It’d be so nice to be able to just take the train from my home,’” Brown said while riding the new line Tuesday. “And now it’s happening. So we’re really, really excited about it.”

Josh Hirschfeld, a college student, carried two pennants on the train Tuesday — one from that day’s opening and one from the 2014 opening of the first phase of the Silver Line, which he also went to on day one. He didn’t want to miss this opening, either. But this time it was also for utility — he was catching a flight back to school from Dulles Airport later.

“It makes getting out to Dulles so much easier,” he said.

At Ashburn, a white and silver balloon arch adorned the entrance. At other stations, big silver bows and grand opening signs decorated the new stations.

“Where Metro goes is where community grows,” Clarke said during the ribbon cutting at Ashburn, where new townhomes are under construction and a big mixed-use development is planned.

Earlier in the morning, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined Metro, airport, and elected officials to cut the ribbon at the Dulles International Airport station during a chilly ceremony.

“When the airport was first opened almost exactly 60 years ago today, President Kennedy said that the building symbolizes the aspirations of the United States,” Buttigieg said. “And I think the same can be said of the Silver Line today, allowing people to affordably get to where they need to go, whether it is a baggage handler working at the airport, or a federal employee commuting into the District of Columbia, or a software engineer working at the terrific tech employers who are here. So many will count on this and will benefit from it.”

You can watch the full ribbon-cutting event here:

Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority CEO Jack Potter said he’s so glad people thought, decades ago, to bring Metro to Dulles Airport, calling it one of the largest and most-complicated transportation projects in the country. The Airports Authority was in charge of constructing the line.

“It took tens of thousands of people,” Potter said during his remarks. “It’s going to serve this metro area for decades … we built it to last a century and it will.”

Many speakers, including Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, reminisced about the long timeline it took to get here.

“I was young when I started this project and two weeks ago I became eligible and registered for Medicare,” Kaine joked.

The Silver Line has even invaded Kaine’s dreams — he spoke of a dream he had this month where he rode the new line to Dulles with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Buttigieg, and Warner.

“And when we get to Dulles, the Silver Line just takes off into the sky. And the most amazing part of my dream is no one was surprised in my dream,” Kaine said. “Of course, the Silver Line will take off.”

Loudoun County Board Chair Phyllis Randall said she is thankful commissioners took the tough 5-4 vote to bring Metro to Ashburn in 2011.

“It wasn’t just for the economy and it wasn’t just for the environment and it wasn’t just for the housing that will go up,” Randall said. “It was for every single man, woman, girl, and boy who can live a better quality of life. That is why we’re here.”

The first public Silver Line train on the extension left Ashburn at 1:54 p.m with more than 100 riders — at long last — all aboard.

For more coverage of the opening of the Silver Line, there is additional reporting from today on the DCist Instagram profile, as well as a Twitter thread from our reporter here.

This story was updated with more scenes from opening day.