"JDC"
As always John, your work and insight is stunning.
How often do Blue trains run to New Carrollton? If never, is this a 'just in case' code that Metro prepares ahead of time?
The Blue New Carrollton code is for system opening and closing put outs and take outs, there is insufficient room at Largo to store all of the eastbound Blue line trains after closing. It has also been used for line reconfigurations on Independence Day.
....... Now that I've read all the codes, I see Metro has a lot of 'bizzare' codes like Green to Franc-Springfield, too.
Not as bizarre as you might think, optional alternative for Yellow line Springfield-Franconia - Greenbelt
I also see they have the Wiehle Station as "Wiehle Ave.-Reston East", which is what I personally think the station name should be, but which the powers that be insisted be called "Wiehle-Reston East."
This may have been the result of the protest over excessively long station names.
I board at Eisenhower often and on the pylon that indicates 'to downtown DC' there is an old Blue line circle that is covered up and it says "Stadium-Armoury'. When, if ever, did Blue line trains run from Eisenhower?
Long story, WMATA,s original line pattern was:
Red: Shady Grove - Glenmont
Blue: Huntington - Addison Road
Orange: New Carrollton - Vienna
Yellow: Greenbelt - Franconia / Backlick Road
Green: Greenbelt - Branch Avenue
When the route from National Airport to Huntington was ready to open WMATA did not have sufficient rolling stock to extend the Blue line to Huntington but they did have enough to extend the Yellow line, so they extended the Yellow instead. The first of the 2k cars were just beginning to arrive on the property at the time the Huntington station opened, none of 2k cars had passed acceptance testing at that time. Later the Blue line was extended to Van Dorn. When sufficient rolling stock became available WMATA chose not to switch the lines back to the original pattern.
The 2k cars made their public debut on the day the Huntington station opened, a 4 car train of 2k cars was spotted at the platform on track C2 for public inspection.
Expiation to what happen to the original line pattern, Yellow: Greenbelt - Franconia / Backlick Road.
The original Virginia end of the Yellow line had two terminals one at Franconia Road along the route that now extends to Springfield-Franconia and the other where the VRE Backlick Road station is today. The branch to Backlick Road was deleted from the ARS and the branch to Franconia Road was extended to where the Springfield-Franconia station is today.
John in the sand box of Maryland's eastern shore.