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At 33, Darryl Minor is on an upward climb at the agency. He was promoted from bus driver to rail operator to rail supervisor. James Minor, 59, who was Metro's 1999 employee of the year, said his son has a better shot at advancement than he faced as a young man. "When I came along, you had to know people to advance. It wasn't just based on ability," Minor said. "Things are different now."

Lorita Tetteh also feels a twinge of ambivalence about following in her father's footsteps.

"Driving a bus is great," she said. "But I was taught coming up to be a little bit better than my parents are. Right now, I'm equal with my father."

She hopes one day to leave Metro and start her own business. In the meantime, Tetteh discourages her children from bus driving. "My girls ride the bus with me, but I always tell them to strive to be better," she said. "If they want to work for Metro, being in management would be nice."

                                 © 2001 The Washington Post Company

Inside the Silver Coating, Whole New Look for Metro

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 16, 2001

The first batch of 192 brand-new Metrorail cars -- with a new interior color scheme that is a departure from the 1970s burnt orange fleet -- is undergoing final testing, and the trains should be picking up passengers by the end of the month, Metro managers say.

From the outside, the first new cars to be purchased by Metro in a decade look identical to the rest of the Metro fleet. They are 75 feet long and have the same silver aluminum exterior with a horizontal brown band, although they gleam with an unblemished shine. They carry the same number of riders, about 200 seated and standing.

But inside, there are some visible differences. Gone are the windscreens that jut out around the doors of the older Metro cars. Transit officials said getting rid of the partitions creates some room around the doors and makes boarding and exiting easier for people in wheelchairs or those pushing strollers, luggage or bicycles. Additional silver bars for standing passengers run along the ceiling near the doors.

At both ends of each new car are prominent electric signs that carry the name of the next station and an arrow pointing to the side of the car where the doors will open. Over each door is a small red light that flashes when the doors are about to close, adding a visual cue to the warning chime.

The upholstered seats are red and blue instead of the orange and tan motif that permeates the older Metro cars and has been a Metro mainstay since the subway opened in 1976. The carpeting is a tweed of red, yellow, blue and green. And the walls are pale gray, making the new cars appear lighter than the older cars, which have yellowish walls.

While it took Metro directors hours of handwringing discussion with color consultants to approve the new colors, they couldn't quite give up the past. In each new rail car, two rows of seats on either end are covered in mustard yellow. The color is reminiscent of the old cars but looks a bit out of place in the new ones.

"Some of the board members wanted to change the entire look of the cars, some of them didn't want any change at all, so this is something of a compromise," said Lem Proctor, Metro's chief operating officer for rail service.

The cars have several improvements that passengers won't see but are designed to make them more reliable and easier to maintain. They carry an electronic diagnostic system designed to pinpoint problems, which should allow train operators to more quickly identify balky doors or badly behaving brakes. And they have the equivalent of an airliner's "black box" that will give mechanics precise information about malfunctions. The cars are also the first to have all electric systems run on alternating current, which makes them cleaner and easier to maintain and will reduce the amount of carbon dust emitted into the cars and rail tunnels.

The rail cars, which cost $340 million, were supposed to begin service in December but were delayed four months largely because of electronic and software glitches. They are desperately needed by a transit system that does not have enough rail cars to carry its passengers.

Metro is carrying record numbers of riders -- five of its top 10 ridership days ever were recorded this month. On Thursday, 686,581 boardings were made on the subway -- its fifth-busiest day since service began in 1976.

Crowding is particularly intense on the Orange, Red and Green lines.

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