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Gentlemen, thank you for your spotting assistance - with the exception of the Metro Express D42LFAs and the repainted 30' Orion VIIs, and Ride-On's 2008 Gilligs, I was able to find everything I was looking for Metro, Fairfax Connector and Ride-On.

As was mentioned, many RTS buses served West Falls Church during the peak; it wasn't the best location for photography and a few of my shots will need a bit of repair because of accidentally getting small parts of shadows in them, but the supervisors there were nice and let me take shots of whatever I wanted and none of the drivers complained about it. I got most of my Ride-On action in the vicinities of Rockville and Silver Spring stations, and I was able to find the newest 30' Orion VII BRTs running from Anacostia thanks to the NextBus XML data. I was also able to get shots of buses from ART at Pentagon City and LCT both at West Falls Church and on 7th Ave NW, which I had never bothered with in past trips in addition to the MTA commuter coaches. I never made it to Baltimore, unfortunately...maybe next time.

I also checked out King Street and Eisenhower Ave stations for the newest DASH Gillig hybrids but didn't see any. I was able to get shots of the King Street Trolleys though.

Thanks for the info folks - now I remember why I went to Springfield for Fairfax buses - the sun angles and lack of places to take photos at West Falls Church are a definite problem. I'll see what I can do - are there any other Metro stations or areas connected to Metro where they run a lot of service (other than Franconia-Springfield)?

Shady Grove looks similarly challenging but there appears to be some street sidewalk to stand on - I have no interest in being interrogated by WMATA or other authorities for loitering on their properties and much prefer shooting photos from the street. There are lots of sun angles in that area so I should be able to get something done there. Still not sure if I'm going to Baltimore yet or not; the weather for most of my trip has some threat of rain, but if so, this information should be quite useful.

Was this from today? If so, then it makes sense, since today's a holiday, and Metro's operating on a Sunday schedule. Try it again tomorrow, and everything should be back to normal.

My bad - I forgot about that as I had to work! Some of the refresh numbers look a bit higher than I'm used to with other NextBus systems providing open data but it does seem more like what I would expect. Thanks for this information as I didn't know this existed until now.

Hi everyone - I'm hoping you all may be able to help me with bus spotting again as you did a couple of years ago as I will be in the DC area for a week or so and want to update my WMATA and area photo collection. My apologies if some of these questions are answered in other threads; I've found a lot of answers already but not to these questions.

First, I'm looking to find some different vehicle types and I'm looking for route suggestions as I do not know WMATA's garage allocation or route assignments. Based on photos I've seen, it looks like a lot of the Orion VIIs have been repainted in to the Metro Local scheme - are these repainted units (both the 30' and 40' versions) plentiful around the area or should I check specific routes for them? I've also been seeing photos of the finished new 30' Orion VII NGs on some sites but I don't believe that they've been delivered yet.

Also, the Metro Express buses have eluded me in two previous trips - other than the B30, what other routes use these buses?

Finally, the last time I was there, the LFA buses had overtaken the fleet, but the DE62LFAs were hard to find - I'm looking for suggestions on where to find them. I'm also curious about where the Xcelsiors are used, as I have never seen them in person.

I also have a couple of questions about some of the suburban systems. First, Ride-On has proven to be a very difficult system for me to shoot due to their large service area and fleet variety. Any recommendations for where I could find frequent service, preferably with variety? Also, I know it's been asked before but I want to check if it's still accurate - is West Falls Church station the best place to find Fairfax RTS buses, and is it safe to assume they only run in rush hours? I'm also looking for yellow Orion Vs from Fairfax - last time I was there I shot their system near Springfield-Franconia and didn't see RTS buses or yellow Vs.

My last question is about MTA - I'm considering a day in Baltimore but I'm not sure of where to look for some of the buses that eluded me last time I went. I never got any shots of their MCIs, but I know they run in DC and I know where to get them there. Their Opus and DE60LFR buses were nowhere to be found in 2010 and now I see that they have DE60LFs and Xcelsiors. Any help spotting these bus types is appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Just curious about how effective searching the NextBus XML data is for finding active vehicles on the road - I just scanned a bunch and the refresh numbers on most was kind of high and more were showing as unassigned to any route than I would expect in PM rush. My experience in accessing this data from other systems is that the refresh rate should yield much lower numbers. Thanks.

Sorry about the late reply, but thanks for all the assistance in tracking down the buses - some tips were good, some bad, and some were neutral, but all the information was really helpful. What wasn't helpful was the 100 degree weather everyday - too hot for standing around outside taking bus photos!

I'm going to be visiting Washington next week and I'm looking to ride and photograph some of the newer (and a few older) types of buses in WMATA's fleet. I was there last year and got a decent sampling of most types, but a few eluded me, and I'm hoping some of you may be able to help me. I'm more interested in route numbers of where I can find these buses rather than terminals/garages, but anything is a start:

5200 Ikarus articulateds - never saw these last year, don't know if they're still around
6001-39 DE40LF buses
6040-50 DE40LFR buses
2800 C40LFR buses in express colors. I've shot them in the other schemes already.
5431-5452 DE62LFA - from the pics on the board I see they're on Q6 an Y9 - any other suggestions welcome
3751-3770 DE37LFA buses

I'm also interested in any routes that use Flxible buses outside of rush hour. Thanks in advance.