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Yes DC did buy the Phantoms and yes two went into service for PRTC before the first batch of Advantages came in.

WMATA's Metro 8700 series

I am going to right now start a preliminary flashback photo thread and see if this is going to gain some momentum.  If this is successful, I will add more or others will add more.  The way I have it planned is that each bus model that ran in the DC area would have its own subject (as you see in this particular title). It will cover all of this model (aka the Flxible Metro) and will cover all of the agencies that used this bus in the DC area.  So if you have old photos of the Metro from WMATA, Ride On and University of Maryland, feel free to post them here.  I will add some a little later tomorrow and like I said if this goes well we can add other models later.

Seeing and posting flashback photos on the Facebook site, I was thinking that one should be on here, what does everyone think about that? It would be just like the monthly photo board here but it would just be continuous.  Another idea would be flashback photos based on make (example Flxible flashback, Orion flashback etc).

A few more

Some pics from last week.

To a point no, if there was much patronage on weekends then the service might be there, if the funding was there to make it happen. Mostly all of VA service runs on an hourly basis only REX and a handfull of other routes run more frequent than an hour on weekends and a lot of VA service only runs during rush hour.  I think if I'm correct Annex is back to running weekday service only because there's no real need to keep Annex open on the weekends.  It happened when Montgomery first opened, they were closed on weekends, service was run by Northern/Western/Bladensburg.  WMATA has to keep costs low, as much as they can, since there is no real tax revenue to fund it.

On the why doesn't all the garages not open on weekends, why waste money on operational costs to have all the garages open on the weekend when FMR has enough to run all weekend service in VA and believe me FMR has more than enough to run weekend service and then some.  VA doesn't have so much service that it warrants more than one garage to stay open.  If more service comes to VA on the weekends that another garage needs to be open then they'll have another garage open on the weekends.  If you get into the understanding of why things happen then you'll understand how things happen.

Pics from a few days ago.

One more from this Friday and a few more from earlier this month.

Some more pics from the Open House and this past weekend.

Some photos from the Open House yesterday

Sheppard Parkway will be getting all 105 buses of this order.  Royal is not able to handle low floor buses and is supposed to be closed within a few months.

Really?  The 1992 Orion Vs had their problems when they got their engines replaced to that god awful DD50 EGR system, other than that they were pretty good, and if it was the Flx New Looks, I rarely saw those things have mechanical problems, and when they did it was later in their lives they had them.  Cosmetic flaws shouldn't make a order bad, mechanical problems do.  I can't stand the 2100s, but I am not going to make them the among the worst bus order WMATA ordered.  These are truly IMHO were the worst bus orders WMATA made.  I can't officially say why the Orion IIs were retired prematurely, but I don't think it had anything to do with mechanical or other issues.  Someone can confirm this but since they were bought by the DC government and purchased without Federal funds, along with possible route changes, bus purchases, they were probably deemed as surplus and since DC bought them and they couldn't be run in any other jurisdiction other than DC they were deemed surplus, that's my only reason.

5)RTSes(Rear doors were the main problem, they had to be sidelined for months till the problem got fixed)

4)AM Generals (These has something wrong with them, because they were replaced only after 13 years, when they had at that time 20 year old GM New Looks still running-a few lasted past the original Neos)

3)The NABI BRTs (Constant problems with them, one getting rehabbed, reportedly, already)

2)Orion VIs (Though I like them, they have had problems ever since they went into service and the rear wheel fires sealed their fate0

1)Neoplan AN440s (You all forgot this one, problems with the frames, engine cradles-reportedly- most were pulled off of the road in the early 90s, went into service in 1983.  They actually had to be pulled from service after they went into service in 83, because of reported frame problems)

I would have to include the first batch of Xcelesiors also because most are falling apart already, if you rode 7014, you know what I am talking about.

At one time Montgomery had all of them but when the rear door fiasco happened, they were all parked at Landover.  9112 was turned into a surburban and when they had those rear door fixed they were split between Royal, FMR and Montgomery. For a brief time 9038 was running from Landover, then it went to Royal.  I think it was 9001-39 Royal, 9040-79 FMR and the rest Montgomery before they were retired.