No, those train brake fumes aren’t making you hallucinate: Metro really did win a gold medal for its trophy case.

On Friday, Metro’s five-person train crew took home the American Public Transit Association’s Rail Transit Team Achievement Award at APTA’s International Rail Rodeo competition. Twelve teams—including transit employees from Denver, San Francisco, and Boston—competed for top honors in operations and maintenance. WMATA’s team roped the highest combined score.

The operations event tested the entrants’ train operation skills, knowledge of safety regulations, train equipment, and track right-of-way procedures. WMATA’s Charlie Richardson and Danielle Glass placed second. In the maintenance event, which judged competitors’ ability to troubleshoot equipment issues, WMATA’s Adrian Tase, Roland Lamar, and Jacob Stout took the bronze.

APTA President William Millar called the winning team members “models of excellence.”

Metro riders can only pray that this excellence disease is contagious, since the rest of the system continues to be a model of something other than excellence week in and week out.

Photo by cuttlefish via Flickr/CC BY 2.0