Washington DC Metro discussion

[George Harris]

I am not going to go back and quote some of the previous comments, although some will be addressed here. Consider this a start of several. I spent a little over 6 years on this system in its beginning, 1 1/2 years with a contractor and 4 1/2 years with DeLeuw Cather (the General Engineering Consultant) as a track engineer.

Track/wheel issues: Track gauge was originally set a 4'-8 1/4" on straight track and large radius curves and widened to 4'-8 1/2" on most curves with further widening as the curve radius got smaller. The 1/4 inch tight track gauge was chosen to presumably provide a better wheel/rail interface. Wheel gauge was set as normal for 4'-8 1/2" tracks. There were numerous issues involving tracks, wheels, truck stiffness, some of which were resolved early, and some which may never be resolved. I will skip this whole area for now.

The stations and underground sections leaking issues is a construction quality issue, and not one easy to fix. The need for good waterproofing was understood from the beginning, and to the best of my knowledge was properly designed and specified.

First, I truly love the open vault concept for the stations. The New York City subway stations and those of some other systems are claustrophobic. The relatively dim lighting was intentional. Weese wanted a "Cathedral" sense in the stations. Likewise, the vertical station name signs were part of this concept. "Like a candle in a Cathedral" were his words. The gradual darkening of the concrete with age and accumulated dirt appeared to not have been considered in the original design of the lighting. To paint the inside of the station vaults I regard as somewhere between being simply stupid and an abomination. A higher level of lighting is the only realistic solution. It does not need to be operating room bright, but it should be up to easy to read things bright.

More later.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

There is amazingly bright lighting in the New Haven Amtrak station tunnel.

What kind of lighting is that? And would it be a possibility for the Washington Metro, or is it only practical for a smaller space like the New Haven tunnel?

 

[Literalman]

I lived in Virginia from 1991 to 2022 and rode Metro much, even before that, starting in 1977. Yes, the Metro system is physically attractive compared to New York's, but on one of my frequent trips on Septa I was thinking recently that the subway system is kind of pretty (blue and silver) and could be considered a nice environment if not for people high on drugs and an uncomfortable level of crime. Reading books and magazines on the Metro platform says something about the low frequency of service we riders often had to deal with, the worst being when the wheels started shifting on the axles and peak service was every half hour. You could wait that long for a packed train and then wait as long for the next one, then repeat the process at a transfer station. I stopped riding Metrorail while that situation lasted.

 

[George Harris]

And let's not forget to "credit" (cough cough) a little-known federal agency, the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, with near-veto power over the appearance of monumental Washington. Reportedly the soaring, waffled ceilings were at their insistence. From History of the Commission of Fine Arts | Commission of Fine Arts: "Large-scale development returned to Washington in the mid-1950s through the 1960s, with the development of International- and Modern-style complexes such as the Federal Center Southwest and the Kennedy Center; other civic improvements included the monumental Metro system, whose coffered station vaults recalled Imperial Roman construction." Alleged original sketch at A Century Of Design: The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 1910-2010 | National Building Museum.

The design (which I frankly find dystopian) has had many other impacts on Metro. It necessitated very, very deep stations, even deeper than the hilly topography in parts of DC like Rock Creek Park demanded. That in turn required long escalators and elevators which are prone to breakdown. The gloomy stations are difficult to illuminate and to clean, and they leak. Form over function.

I've heard that the CFA and other designers wanted to set Metro apart from older systems like New York and London with their lower ceilings and scrubbable and durable tile. Of course, the reviled "subway tile" is a classic that came (deservedly) roaring back to popularity, at least for homes, in the 21st century.

I did tend to forget about the Fine Arts Commission as everything we had to do with them was filtered through Harry Weese. Practicality is not part of their understanding of anything. That the DC streetcar system operated with a "plow" in a slot between the rails to contact a power rail being a prime example, because the Fine Arts Commission absolutely opposed any overhead wires anywhere. I think this also extends to suspended traffic lights, regardless of the width of the street. We had drawings of the DC standard streetcar tracks in our office. This was one expensive and complex design necessitated by the need for safety and reliability of the under the street power rail.

There were two vault cross sections. A "low" vault for use where stations were shallow, and a higher crown vault used in deep sections where there were bored tunnels and cover over the station was not an issue.

As said earlier, I do think the vaulted stations was and is a great idea. A little more understanding of lighting needs would have been nice along with better and more signage. Also, while talking stations, there was a push to reduce costs during my years there. One proposal was to change the platform tile design with an easier to build system. Weese screamed long and loud about that one, so it did not happen. Reduction in number of entrances was done in a few stations. That was a dumb idea. Changing the mezzanine to platform down escalators to stairs was also done, and in my mind was an even dumber idea. There are many people who have balance issues going down steps that would have taken the escalators than now have to hunt for and use the handicapped elevators. Another Weese suggestion was to reduce the length of some of the stations that were anticipated to be relatively low volume, even down so far as to be only two cars long. Fortunately that was not done. In my mind that would have gone beyond dumb into the realm of stupidity.

It is not their length that makes the elevators and escalators prone to breakdown. It is first and foremost that in the desire to have more open appearing entrances, the upper ends, is and for quite a few entrances a good bit of the length of the escalators is exposed to weather, meaning rain, snow, hot. cold, salt on the sidewalks running into the mechanisms, none of which is good for the machinery. I had heard that there have been covers placed over quite a few of the entrance escalators, which hopefully has helped. The typical neglect of preventive maintenance hasn't done these things much good either.

 

[cirdan]

Operationally I might think it's lower-maintenance to use lighter and even reflective surfaces (hence the iconic "subway tile") to bounce around the available light, rather than pay pricy labor to constantly replace light bulbs, especially on ceilings as high as Metro's, but what do I know.

Modern day LED light bulbs have much longer expected working lives than old time incandescent bulbs. This should also lead to savings in labor for replacing them as well as savings in the electricity bill, and could even hypothetically make it possible to install more (or brighter) lights while still keeping overall costs lower..

Subway tiles have the advantage that graffiti and dirt are relatively easy to clean off, whereas concrete is more unforgiving. I do like the overall effect of the vaulted concrete though.

 

[boxcar479]

Maybe not the right place to post, but I'll be staying near the Metro Center station in Feb is it easy to get up to the street w a 30" rolling duffel? tia

 

[MARC Rider]

Maybe not the right place to post, but I'll be staying near the Metro Center station in Feb is it easy to get up to the street w a 30" rolling duffel? tia

As long as the escalators or elevator are working, no problem.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

Modern day LED light bulbs have much longer expected working lives than old time incandescent bulbs. This should also lead to savings in labor for replacing them as well as savings in the electricity bill, and could even hypothetically make it possible to install more (or brighter) lights while still keeping overall costs lower..

Subway tiles have the advantage that graffiti and dirt are relatively easy to clean off, whereas concrete is more unforgiving. I do like the overall effect of the vaulted concrete though.

Maybe not the right place to post, but I'll be staying near the Metro Center station in Feb is it easy to get up to the street w a 30" rolling duffel? tia

Elevator should do it. Metro keeps everything clean.

The lighting it turns out went from fluorescent to LED in 2020. Before and after pictures are here, but the fluorescents shown were in a bad state: Making D.C. Metro brighter, safer, and more sustainable

 

[John Santos]

Elevator should do it. Metro keeps everything clean.

The lighting it turns out went from fluorescent to LED in 2020. Before and after pictures are here, but the fluorescents shown were in a bad state: Making D.C. Metro brighter, safer, and more sustainable

LED lights save a lot of energy and last much longer than either florescent or incandescent lights. Florescent lifetime is much longer than incandescent and uses about 1/4 as much power for the same brightness when new. When incandescent bulbs die, the filament just burns out and breaks, so they go out more or less instantly, but florescents die slowly, gradually getting more yellow and dimmer. It looks like that was they state they were in in the "before" pictures.
I haven't had many LED bulbs die at home, and none in my office where we've replaced most of the 4' 40W florescent tubes with compatible LEDs.

Warning: There are two types of LED 4' tubes. Some are direct plug-in replacements and run off the high-voltage, low-current output of the ballast transformer, and others require you to have an electrician remove the ballast and run the building's 120V AC directly to the 2-pin sockets at each end of the tube. (I could be wrong about the technical details, but it requires an electrician and involves removing the ballast transformer, so the lights are no longer compatible with the original florescent tubes.)

The LED tubes are incredibly efficient. (Sarcasm alert) According to the link Mr Riley posted above, to the web site of the contractor who replaced the lighting, the new system "will save the D.C. Metro area 17,000,000 million kilowatt-hours annually". This is 61200000000000000000 Joules, or about 4 times the annual energy production of the United States. This should make a large dent in global warming.

 

[jis]

The LED tubes are incredibly efficient. (Sarcasm alert) According to the link Mr Riley posted above, to the web site of the contractor who replaced the lighting, the new system "will save the D.C. Metro area 17,000,000 million kilowatt-hours annually". This is 61200000000000000000 Joules, or about 4 times the annual energy production of the United States. This should make a large dent in global warming.

Goes to show how big a problem Americans have with the MKSA units and doing a simple sanity check of the nonsense they sometimes spew. LOL!

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

LED lights save a lot of energy and last much longer than either florescent or incandescent lights. Florescent lifetime is much longer than incandescent and uses about 1/4 as much power for the same brightness when new. When incandescent bulbs die, the filament just burns out and breaks, so they go out more or less instantly, but florescents die slowly, gradually getting more yellow and dimmer. It looks like that was they state they were in in the "before" pictures.
I haven't had many LED bulbs die at home, and none in my office where we've replaced most of the 4' 40W florescent tubes with compatible LEDs.

Warning: There are two types of LED 4' tubes. Some are direct plug-in replacements and run off the high-voltage, low-current output of the ballast transformer, and others require you to have an electrician remove the ballast and run the building's 120V AC directly to the 2-pin sockets at each end of the tube. (I could be wrong about the technical details, but it requires an electrician and involves removing the ballast transformer, so the lights are no longer compatible with the original florescent tubes.)

The LED tubes are incredibly efficient. (Sarcasm alert) According to the link Mr Riley posted above, to the web site of the contractor who replaced the lighting, the new system "will save the D.C. Metro area 17,000,000 million kilowatt-hours annually". This is 61200000000000000000 Joules, or about 4 times the annual energy production of the United States. This should make a large dent in global warming.

For shop lights you might have in your home garage, bypassing the ballast is easy. Admittedly at work, the guy who did it for us was one of our electricians. But I've replaced ballasts, the wiring is as simple as a model train set. It's a heavy thing the size of a long brick that's bolted inside the cover above the tubes. It costs about the same at the hardware store, when they have them, as the type of LED tubes that say to bypass the ballast. I guess everyone knows, but fluorescent ballasts slowly fail and you're left wondering if you have bad tubes or bad ballasts, swapping around to find out. The mercury in fluorescent tubes is supposedly depleted by the time they go bad, and you inevitably break them in the trash, or find a place that takes them. LED's on the other hand last so long that some lighting units are permanent, no tubes or bulbs to replace. The LED's look like little circuit chips glued on the unit.

An LED diode is a sort of upside-down solar power cell, which is also a diode. Energy in, energy out. It'll never be as cozy as incandescent, no matter what Kelvin rating or mixture, but that's how it is. A campfire is cozy too. The night before July 1 this year, I was at a big box store that was pulling all the incandescent bulbs off the shelves. It must be twenty years ago people were rushing to stock up on incandescents. Seems the long delayed day did come this summer.

You can always go to the light bulb store seen on the Portlandia TV show. I think it's this one: Unique Light Bulbs | Sunlan Lighting Inc | Portland, OR

 

[BlackDiamond]

That sounds a bit dangerous. What happens if someone unknowingly replaces the bulb in a fixture with bypassed ballast with a fluorescent bulb? It would be better if the fixtures for LED had a different pinout to prevent this from happening.

 

[west point]

I have 16, 2-bulb 8-foot single pin fluorescent in my basement and a couple other places. Got a bunch of single pin 8 foot bulbs from a demo site. As they are an inventory have used them for tube replacing. However I have already had 5 of the ballasts go bad. Just converted those to direct wire 8-foot LEDs. Start to finish 1 hour 10 - 15 minutes. Ballast LEDs and straight LED bulbs about same cost. Saved over $100 not having to buy new Ballasts. Note due to weight and wiring replacing a ballast takes more time.

Also found that 1 bulb LED was as bright as 2 fluorescent in same fixture. That is because LRD can focus all light downward instead of lost light going up.

Now I had a 4-bulb 2 pin fixture that took about 3 to 3-1/2 hours to convert due to cutting wires to one end and split wiring to other end. Each bulb package has stickers to put on fixtures

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

That sounds a bit dangerous. What happens if someone unknowingly replaces the bulb in a fixture with bypassed ballast with a fluorescent bulb? It would be better if the fixtures for LED had a different pinout to prevent this from happening.

I haven't done one myself, but that's a good question.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

If I remember right, the brackets had a slightly different pin connection from the video's I've seen, but I could be wrong. The tubes might simply not work.

 

[Ziv]

Elevator should do it. Metro keeps everything clean.

The lighting it turns out went from fluorescent to LED in 2020. Before and after pictures are here, but the fluorescents shown were in a bad state: Making D.C. Metro brighter, safer, and more sustainable

I rode the Metro to work in the late 1980's and early 1990's and the lighting was always good. You could easily read a print newspaper and I frequently did. I quit that job and did not ride the metro for 20 years until I went into DC by Metro in 2016. When I did I was dumbfounded by how dark it was. The fluorescent lights were not high tech but the design had been intended to use the light color/high albedo of the concrete to reflect the light and multiply its effect. As the years went by the concrete darkened considerably and much less light was reflected. I got a receipt out of my wallet to try to read it and it was problematic. Funny thing is that I never boarded a metro without something printed to read in the old days and by 2016 I seldom read anything but my phone and my computer.
I am curious to see if the new LED lighting has improved it much. I hope it has. I am going to be camping out in lovely Ballston for several days so I will take a trip if only for that purpose.

 

[Trollopian]

Thank you for adding "albedo" to my vocabulary. "Albedo, fraction of light that is reflected by a body or surface." (Most used in astronomy to refer to sun- or star-light, but obviously useful here.) As Metro's concrete darkened over the decades I thought wistfully of the subway tiles that its designers sneered at.

 

[George Harris]

Thank you for adding "albedo" to my vocabulary. "Albedo, fraction of light that is reflected by a body or surface." (Most used in astronomy to refer to sun- or star-light, but obviously useful here.) As Metro's concrete darkened over the decades I thought wistfully of the subway tiles that its designers sneered at.

We didn't need to give Weese any ideas. The cost of doing this to the arches would have been astronomical. The tiling on the platforms was ridiculously expensive as it was. Most were done over in part or in total during construction. Generally the finish contractors lost a bundle on these things despite the bid costs being way above the anticipated amounts.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Just rode through Capitol South and it seemed brighter than other stations.

 

[user 13416]

Metro Train Derails near National Airport

Apparently part of a brake assembly fell off a 3000-series train, and the next train on that track was a 7000-series that hit the part and derailed. The train was pulling out of the DCA Airport station and was at low speed.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

WMATA Inspector General Rene Febels has resigned under intense pressure. As in, a board member invited him in for a chat and was about to fire him, reportedly.

“The law mandates that Metro maintain an independent inspector general with broad power to ensure public safety and accountability. Metro must comply with the law,” Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) said in a statement. “This disappointment is compounded by the Board’s decision to force out the current Inspector General, an essential voice for accountability, the second such incidence in the past two years.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/11/07/metro-inspector-general-audit/ Paywall perhaps, I have a certain number of article gifts I can make.

Metro is doing better but could do better.

 

[dadonatrain]

Tourist question here. Are the Washington DC metro cars anywhere at all conducive to travelers to/from Union Station lugging a couple rollaboards? Most “subway” cars I’m familiar with elsewhere have barely any open floor space at all that would make that even remotely easy. Much less a space specifically for luggage while on board.

I should also inquire about how the station “toll gates” work for an old guy like me trying to pass through one dragging a suitcase behind me. Is using the Metro at all with luggage just a dumb idea?

 

[Trogdor]

It’s quite easy to use metro with luggage. The fare gates are not rotary gates/turnstiles, but rather either a small gate that folds into the fare machine (older style), or a small door that swings open (newer style). The Red Line can be a bit crowded, depending on the time of day, but the area near the door typically has plenty of room to have a roll aboard suitcase with adjacent seats.

The only thing I’d note is that if you are traveling before the end of the year, the Red Line has track work that will necessitate a shuttle bus for people traveling west of downtown DC.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Tourist question here. Are the Washington DC metro cars anywhere at all conducive to travelers to/from Union Station lugging a couple rollaboards? Most “subway” cars I’m familiar with elsewhere have barely any open floor space at all that would make that even remotely easy. Much less a space specifically for luggage while on board.

I should also inquire about how the station “toll gates” work for an old guy like me trying to pass through one dragging a suitcase behind me. Is using the Metro at all with luggage just a dumb idea?

There are handicap gates you could use with your luggage if you don’t think they’ll pass through the regular gates. As Trogdor stated above the gates are not the old style turnstiles.

 

[bonzoesc]

Tourist question here. Are the Washington DC metro cars anywhere at all conducive to travelers to/from Union Station lugging a couple rollaboards? Most “subway” cars I’m familiar with elsewhere have barely any open floor space at all that would make that even remotely easy. Much less a space specifically for luggage while on board.

I should also inquire about how the station “toll gates” work for an old guy like me trying to pass through one dragging a suitcase behind me. Is using the Metro at all with luggage just a dumb idea?

I've navigated the ride from Union Station to Wiehle/Reston East and back, and from Dulles to National Airport with a big roller bag (too big to carry on) and a backpack and it wasn't too bad. The silver line ride's long and I'm glad it wasn't rush hour for most of them. I could've probably stacked another rolling bag on top of the big one but I didn't have that much stuff.