Have you ever been bored on the Metro, glanced around, and noticed a little badge indicating where the car was actually built? Many of the DC Metro’s current trains were constructed by Kawasaki in Lincoln, Nebraska. Some older ones—which you might still encounter—originated in the unlikely location of Pistoia, a medieval city in Tuscany. No Metro cars have ever been manufactured in the Washington area.
But starting in 2028, you’ll be able to ride on a train that was built here. The 8000 series cars will be assembled at a new $100 million Hitachi factory in Hagerstown. WMATA has ordered 256 of them—part of a $2.2 billion contract stipulating that Hitachi has to make the trains here.
Hitachi recently hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the plant, offering a first look at the 307,000-square-foot facility. The huge building sits near a FedEx distribution center on what was until just a few years ago farmland. Inside, the space is an imposing expanse of concrete that’s crisscrossed with railroad tracks, allowing the cars-in-progress to roll along their assembly lines and, when complete, out a giant door in the side of the building. The factory can produce about 20 cars a month, with humans and robot arms working in a carefully orchestrated dance. In the new factory, the process will also integrate technologies like Spot, a robotic yellow “dog” made by Boston Dynamics that can inspect and photograph trains for safety issues at night while workers are at home.
The ribbon-cutting was rather theatrical—a pair of huge curtains dropped amid billows from a fog machine, revealing a prototype of the new brown-and-silver Metro car that will be made in the factory. Its exterior looked like a major update—slicker and more muscular than the previous design, with a brown stripe that evokes the oldest Metro trains. The interior appeared pretty similar to the current 7000 series, but with some important differences: The cars will be built with some seats facing toward the center aisle, and there will be more space for bikes, strollers, and wheelchairs. Larger digital information screens are another upgrade. And pairs of cars will have open gangways so riders can walk between them.
Randy Clarke, who runs WMATA, was enthusiastic. “A lot of things are going right” with the Metro system, he said, “but the one thing we can’t wait for is beautiful new trains to complement that.”
This article appears in the November 2025 issue of Washingtonian.
Ike Allen covers politics, food, culture, and transportation in DC and writes the monthly Hidden Eats column for the magazine. He grew up in DC.
