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“If you wish to continue on to Shady Grove, the train following me will go to Shady Grove. Train is out of service. Train is out of service.” (Doors opening!)

August 4, 2004, 3:06 AM

And within the hour, I will be in my van, on my way to… (you’re going to be SO surprised on this one) Washington DC. And we’re exploring a little bit out on the Red Line today. What I plan on doing is going all the way out to Shady Grove, taking a Ride-On bus across to Glenmont, and then taking the Metro back down the Glenmont side of the Red Line. In other words, ride Metro’s “A Route” (Shady Grove side of the Red Line) in its entirety, bus across, and then ride Metro’s “B Route” (Glenmont side of the Red Line) in its entirety. The two routes, A and B, meet in the center of the Red Line platform at Metro Center.

And I’m excited about something else, too. I’m meeting my friend Oren for at least a few minutes, and he’s giving me one of Metro’s July 4 maps. These maps are special because unlike the regular WMATA map from 1996 that I have hanging up in my room, the July 4 maps show a special service that Metro runs. On the Fourth of July, Yellow and Blue switch their southern terminals sending Blue to Huntington and Yellow to Franconia-Springfield (interestingly, this is how it was to be normally if not for a temporary car shortage early on in Metro’s history). Additionally, there is no Blue Line service beyond Rosslyn in order to send more trains out to Vienna as Orange Line trains. As such, Orange Line serves trains going to both Addison Road and New Carrollton (normally, Addison Road is Blue). Blue Line trains drop their passengers on Rosslyn’s upper level and then wrong-rail back out of the station on their way back to Huntington, making Blue Line essentially a shuttle. Yellow Line still goes over the bridge to terminate at Mt. Vernon Square. Then Metro short-turns every other train on the Red and Green Lines, with every other train terminating at Fort Totten instead of Greenbelt on Green, and every other train terminating at Silver Spring instead of Glenmont on Red. Oh, by the way, in case you can’t mentally follow my verbal description of Metro’s system map (you mean there are people who DON’T have that map seared into their brains?), here’s a map of the system showing normal service.

And now… it’s off to the shower for me, so I can hit the road to Washington and roll into Vienna at 9:30 or so.

Web site: Press release about improvements being made to King Street station in Alexandria, a station which I use periodically. I just hope that Metro makes the new canopy at King Street, if they keep the original canopy, a little more graceful-looking than National Airport station.

Song: Some background music, though I can't tell you at the moment where it's from... (don't you hate that?)

Quote: "This is Grosvenor station. This train will be out of service. Doors open left side. If you wish to continue on to Shady Grove, the train following me will go to Shady Grove. Train is out of service. Train is out of service." (Doors opening!) - Quote from a train operator about his train going out of service at Grosvenor-Strathmore station.

Categories: DC trips, Friends, WMATA