RAILFAN GUIDES of the U.S.
Todd's Railfan Guide to
the DC STREETCAR
Washington DC
In General
Getting Here
Map
Station by Station
Pictures
Signals
Floobydust
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RAILROAD SIGNALS HOME
295 to the Benning Road exit, west to H Street NE.
If you are going thru the city, find your way to Union Station and head
around the "backside" of the station to H Street NE.
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an
expert. My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page.
This is something I have fun with while trying to help others. Please Note:
Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides
are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them. For those
of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my
indexa page has a list of
almost everything railroad oriented I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to
help you detail your pike. If this is a railfan page, every effort has
been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this
railfan guide is correct. Once in a while, an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a
thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only
get you so far, especially if you get lost or disoriented. Take
along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still
better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get
local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts
out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their
state maps do not have the railroads on them. If you can find em,
I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and
concise graphics, and they do a really good job of showing you where
tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads.
Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known. Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as
being possibly being inaccurate, wrong, or not true.
RAILFAN GUIDES HOME
NEW 01/01/2014
The following set of pictures is from November
2011, taken on the way to the Gaithersburg MD Train Show. Pictures progress from the southern end of
the line to the north end on the right, just shy of the overpass to go over the
Amtrak tracks, just behind Union Station, and show some of the station areas
where they have built up the sidewalk for access to the cars. It looks
like they used the project as an excuse to beautify the immediate area along H
St.
Five years later, again, on the way to the Gaithersburg Train Show, we finally have trains running. These pictures are from November 6th, 2016.
Rides as of that day, are still free, since that way since opening in January.
They are STILL working on the shops building.
the PCC Cars That Came Before
Obviously, with a government run project such
as this, especially in Washington DC where no-one knows what they are doing,
there is bound to be pages and pages of commentary. Here is some of what I
have come across:
Finally, someone prints an article in a positive and upbeat manner!:
The two following articles illustrate why streetcars are not an effective mode of transportation when people depend
on it to get them "there" and on-time - not that the DC Streetcar system goes anywhere people need to get in the first place :-)
And when are they going to keep Megabusses off H Street?
Personal Comments
I especially like Dave Hagan's comment! :-) It's like, HELLO, is there no-one around with any expertise in designing these things? Why do we keep getting such
inept people to be in charge of massive amounts of money and public projects? Aren't consultants supposed to know WTF they are talking about? And the carbarn,
doesn't anyone know when to "keep it in their pants?" I could go on forever......
Disclaimers:
By the way, floobydust is
a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data
book, and means miscellaneous and/or other stuff.
Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels
inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have
something to add or correct.... credit is always given! BE NICE!!! Contact info
is here
RAILROAD SIGNALS HOME
Last Modified
25-Jun-2017