The
Metro provides service to Montgomery and Prince
George's County in Maryland, and in Virginia to Fairfax County, Arlington
County, and the City of Alexandria.
The Metro
opened March 27th, 1976. Since then, the network has grown to
include five lines, 86 stations, and 106.3 miles of track.
It started in 1968, when WMATA approved the construction of a 98
mile rapid transit system. Construction started on
December 9th, 1969. There
were 5 stations on the 4.6 mile Red Line, Rhode Island to
Farragut North. The system now comprises of:
The Red Line, which has 27 stations.
The Blue Line, which opened in 1977 and has 27
stations.
The Orange Line, which opened in 1978 and has 26
stations.
The Yellow Line, which opened in 1983 and has 17
stations.
The Green Line, which opened in 1991, has 21 stations.
The Silver Line is expected to open in 2013 and will
have 11 stations when completed in 2016.
About 50 miles of the system is
underground, as are 47 of the 86 stations.
There are 50 stations in DC, 15 in Prince
Georges Co MD, 11 in Montgomery Co MD, 11 in Arlington Co VA, 6
in Fairfax Co VA, and 3 in Alexandria VA.
The Forest Glen station on the Red Line is
the deepest on the system at 196 feet, but doesn't use
escalators, they use high speed elevators instead.
Washington's Metro system is the second-busiest rapid transit
system in the United States in number of passenger trips, after
the New York City Subway System.
Fares vary based on the distance traveled
and the time of day, which really makes commuting more
complicated than it has to be, and sucks for those of us who
don't ride the system every day. Riders enter and exit the
system using a stored-value card in the form of a paper magnetic
stripe farecard or a proximity card known as SmarTrip.
Parking is pretty convenient at most above
ground stations, BUT BEWARE of the posted signs, for they DO
ticket almost immediately (speaking from personal experience).
Most lots have general parking until the rush hours, then
certain spaces need to be vacated.
WMATA announced changes
back in 2012 to the operating schedule for the Yellow, Orange, and
Blue lines in preparation for the opening of the Silver line.
The changes to Metrorail are being promoted as
Rush Plus, and are effective only during and
around the rush hours.
There are no changes to the Green or Red line
schedules, other than having to adjust your timing if you connect with one of
the aforementioned lines. These changes were in the Sunday, June 10th
edition of the Washington Post in their
Metro section, and take effect on June 18th, 2012.
Trains will be added to the Orange and Yellow
lines, but trains will be deleted from the Blue line schedule.
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. My
webpages are an attempt at putting everything I can find of the subject in
one convenient place. There are plenty of other good websites to help
me in this effort, and they are listed in the links section on my indexa
page, or as needed on individual pages. Please do not write to me
about something that may be incorrect, and then hound the heck out of me if
I do not respond to you in the manner you would like. I operate on the
"Golden Rule Principle", and if you are not familiar with it, please
acquaint yourself with how to treat people by reading Mathew 7:12 (among
others, the principle exists in almost every religion). If you contact
me (like some do, hi Paul) and try to make it a "non-fun" thing and start
with the name calling, your name will go into my spambox list! :-)
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,
especially if restaurants or gas stations open, close, or change names.
Most of my maps are a result of personal observation after visiting these
locations. I have always felt that a picture is worth a thousand words",
and I feel annotated maps such as the ones I work up do the same justice for the
railfan over a simple text description of the area. Since the main focus
of my website is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the
signal fan being able to locate them. Since most of us railheads don't have just
trains as a hobby, I have also tried to point out where other interesting sites
of the area are.... things like fire stations, neat bridges, or other
significant historical or geographical feature. While some may feel they
shouldn't be included, these other things tend to make MY trips a lot more
interesting.... stuff like where the C&O Canal has a bridge going over a river (the Monocacy Aqueduct) between Point of Rocks and Gaithersburg MD, it's way cool to
realize this bridge to support a water "road" over a river was built in the
1830's!!!
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.
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
Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as
being possibly being inaccurate, wrong, or not true.
From 6/12/2012
Other upcoming changes as of June 12th, 2012....
Check out their website for work going on around the
system!