Old Routing

I was recently perusing the website: www.nycsubway.org, which has a great section on the construction, routes, stations and equipment of the Washington DC Metro. I di have a question after reading parts of the site about the green and red lines. Mention was made that the red and green share the route at rush hour. Mention was also made of a "green line shortcut" to Faragaut North which was in existence prior to the completion of the entire green line route. I spent the whole summer in DC two years ago and to my knowledge, the green only shared a routing with the yellow line from L'Enfant to Mt. Vernon Square and the red ran by itself over its entire route. Does any one else know about these routings? Also, where are the connections between routes in DC? I have heard about non-revenue tunnels that connect the lines for dead-head purposes.http://www.nycsubway.org[/url]

I looked at that "article"----- I know about the track connection near Farragut North. This is simply to allow for the swapping of trains betweeen the Blue/Orange Lines ( which use the Farragut West Station) and the Red Line. I know that prior to the completion of the Green Line through Shaw and Columbia Heights, that the northern portion ran from Greenbelt to Fort Totten. The Red Line also stops at Fort Totten on the upper level ( elevated). The Green Line Station is partially underground and partially on the surface. There is a single track connection between the Green Line and the Red Line at Fort Totten and it may be that this track was used for the Greenbelt- Farragut North "shortcut" mentioned in the article. This would have permitted Green Line trains to run through to Farragut North, but they would have been using the Red Line after Fort Totten.

walt has it mostly right. The nature of the connection was such that trains by-passed Fort Totten- the last transfer was at Brookland. It was rush hour only, and began around late 1998, I think (I'm pretty sure it started arouond the same time I started at the U. of MD). While the one seat ride to downtown and back was convenient, you would invariably have a couple minutes of delay as the switches were changed for practically each train. WMATA learned a valuabe lesson from this- shortly afterword, they released a report on system expansion that called for better interoperability, among station expansion, light rail, and extensions.

Before that and during off-hours, WMATA would run shuttle trains along the route, some as small as 2 cars!

So, basically, the Green line runs would enter the Red line at Fort Toten using the connection and skipping the station, then stopping at Brockland before running "express" to Faragaut North?

As an aside, I always thought that the Metro could benefit from some express service, but I figure the two-track nature of the system would prohibit it. However, it would be nice if the Red did have some sort of express service, especially on the section through North West to Shady Grove.

As I recall, that connecting track was south of the Red Line Fort Totten Station so the Green Line Trains couldn't stop there. My last ride on Metrorail was prior to the commencement of this service, so I don't know about the lower level Fort Totten Station.

I would seem to me that it would have been difficult to run those trains as actual expresses considering the amount of Red Line traffic on that line, though they may not have made all of the stops.

The trains made all stops to Farragut North. It was called the "green line shortcut" because it saved people the timme spent transfering at Fort Totten (2 flights of stairs; one set of stairs & one set of escalators from Green line to Mezz., two sets of escalators from Mezz. to Red Line).

Metro did this Green Line Express for customers going to the downtown stations. This service was offered prior to the Green Line being opened between Fort Toten and Mt Vernon.

WMATA spent $$$ on re habbing the switches at Fort Toten and they added a guard rail on the curved section of track leading from the Green Line to the Red Line.

When the train arrived at Farragut North it was taken out of service and turned around in the pocket track just north of the station.

IT'S WORTH MENTIONING WHY THE GREEN LINE WAS GIVEN A SHORTCUT. WHEN THE OUTER GREEN LINE OPENED BETWEEN FORT TOTTEN AND GREENBELT IN 1993 THERE WAS NO SHORT CUT. AFTER SOME TIME METRO SAW THAT THE RIDERSHIP WAS FALLING FAR SHORT OF PROJECTIONS. APPARENTLY RIDERS DIDN'T LIKE THE REQUIRED TRANSFER. SO THE SHORT CUT WAS INTRODUCED TO GIVE RUSH HOUR PATRONS A ONE SEAT RIDE TO THE CITY CENTER. RIDERSHIP INCREASED.

Yes, Mr. Kandyman, you have your points.

But it would be a little nicer if you could use lowercase letters except for the first word of a sentence in your posts from now on. That way, no-one will think that you're yelling. Thanks a bunch....