A few other secrets of the Green line. Adjacent to inbound track E2 between the Greenbelt and Collage Park stations is a test track that exists for the sole purpose of testing new rolling stock and major modification done to existing rolling stock. All of the 7k cars were acceptance tested on the test track. Prior to the building of the test track the mainline tracks between the Greenbelt and Collage Park stations were used to do the acceptance testing of the 5 and 6k cars. The elevated structure west of the West Hyattsville station are the first use of post tension precast concrete segment bridge construction used on the system. The Columbia Heights stations is unique in that it was not built using the typical cut and cover method of construction or mined out of the bedrock. It is a hybrid of both. The stations arched vault is assembled from 432 precast concrete segments in a reinforced concrete cavern created by placing pair of slurry walls that support a reinforced concrete arch. The soil was then mined out from under the arch while at the same time the street and sidewalks above it was restored. As to the arch design of the Shaw station. This was the result of the design change and the availability of forms used to cast the concrete in the 3 stations. The construction of the Mount Vernon station was begun shortly before the construction Shaw station began. The construction U Street made use of the forms used to construction Mount Vernon station as the forms used to construction Shaw station were still being used. Later stations built with the 6 coffer design used the forms to build the Shaw station. The passageway in the New Jersey Avenue entrance to the Navy Yard station has provisions for a future surface entrance on the south side of M Street. The tunnels between the Navy Yard and Anacostia stations were bored using a pressure balanced tunnel boring machine. It was the first time this type of boring machine was ever used to bore tunnels through sedimentary soils on the system.They are also the only tunnels with precast concrete linings that don't have a cast in place inner lining. The point south of the Anacostia station where cut and cover transition to bored tunnels to the Southern Avenue station were also bored using a pressure balanced tunnel boring machine.
I have been waiting for this for some time. I loved the Secrets of the Red Line and Blue Line, and I kept checking for a new video. When I saw it, I stopped my morning routine and watched it immediately. I live in Flagstaff, Arizona, but I love the DC Metro system. I feel safer riding on it than any other system, New York, BART (San Francisco), Atlanta or Chicago. I am eagerly anticipating the next "Secrets" video.
More on College Park Airport: College Park Airport was established back in 1909 by the Army Signal Corps as a training location for Wilbur Wright to instruct military officers to fly in the government's first airplane! A Wright Model A biplane was assembled there in October of that year. Civilian operations began as early as December 1911. It is truly an airport of firsts, as besides Lieutenants Frederic Humphreys and Frank Lahm becoming the first military pilots to solo in a government airplane (Humphreys was the very first), Ralph Henry Van Deman was flown by Wilbur Wright to become the first woman to fly in a powered aircraft in the US as well! Hyattsville was named by its founder Christopher Clark Hyatt, who lived from 1799 to 1884. He purchased his first parcel of land in the area in 1845. Hyatt opened a store and began mail delivery, officially naming the nascent community Hyattsville in his 1859 application to become postmaster. In the years following the Civil War, Hyatt and other local landowners subdivided their properties and sold lots, and the population of Hyattsville grew. Hyattsville was incorporated as a city in April 1886!
Lake Artemesia is called such because it was named after Artemesia N. Drefs, who donated ten lots to the county for preservation as open space in 1972. Petworth was the name of the 205-acre country estate of John Tayloe III, of Mount Airy and The Octagon House, named for the ancient town of Petworth in West Sussex, England. Here he kept horses for the races at the Washington Jockey Club, a club he founded with Charles Carnan Ridgely of Hampton. Anacostia on the other hand got its name from the indigenous Nacotchtank who had a settlement along its banks called “anaquash,” which means “village trading center.” Historians estimate that they lived on the river for 10,000 years.
Fun video! Surprised there was no mention of purple line construction at College Park. One secret that you missed: Between Greenbelt and College Park, there is briefly a third track off to the side. I believe this is metro's official test track for if they need to run equipment back and forth without disrupting service. Also, at Greenbelt station, there is a sneaky narrow sidewalk that goes under the interstate and leads you to the yard. Lastly, correct me if I'm wrong, but just north of Greenbelt yard is one of the few if not the only track connection between Metro and mainline rail. While the tracks are severed, I've heard they can put the rails back in for when they need to take deliveries of equipment via mainline rail.
They're used to be a connection between metro tracks and mainline railroad tracks under the Rhode Island Avenue station. But i'm not sure if it's still there or not.
For Maryland football games, I drive from Grosvenor to Forest Glen park there, get on a Red Line train and change at Fort Totten for a northbound Green Line train to Greenbelt, get off at College Park-UMD and take the free Shuttle UM Quickbus Shuttle which drops me off a block and a half from SECU Stadium.
A few points... 1) Lake Artemesia was expanded specifically to cover the excavation damage following the construction of the Green Line. It wasn't that the lake was expanded and the fill was used to construct the Metro. It was cheaper to source the material locally, and the lake was constructed to fill the hole. 2) The connector track at Fort Totten was not built with the intention of using it for revenue service. That track, known as the B&E (because it connects the B and E routes) is designed for moving equipment on and off of the Red Line. A similar track exists between McPherson Square and Farragut North, known as the C&A. It just worked out that the B&E could be used for the commuter shortcut, but that was never its intended purpose. 3) L'Enfant Plaza, despite what most operators say, is not pronounced "Luh-font". The first syllable is pronounced like "Lon", which rhymes with "con" and "don".
Love your videos! I've ridden the entire DC metro system and it's fun to watch these videos and see what I missed (or what's outside of stations that I didn't stop at/go outside of). Looking forward to seeing the rest of this series! A bit of branch avenue trivia: according to one of the head WMATA engineers, the Branch Avenue rail yard is the main reason why WMATA won't consider fully walk through trains. Each track in the yard can hold 14 cars - enough space for a 6 car and 8 car train. Since WMATA is only running their new cars in 8 car trainsets, this necessitates decoupling and recoupling the last 2 cars of half the trains stored there at the end of each day. For this reason WMATA is only willing to consider open gangways between two cars (continuing their current married pair arrangement); this way two cars can still be easily split off the end of the train to store it and reconnected in the morning (decoupling open gangway cars, or even separating a married pair of cars, is an involved process whereas decoupling a complete married pair from the rest of the trainset is very easy).
yah and that little curve between the Branch Ave stop and the rail yard is so narrow and sharp too. Same goes for a handful of other rail yards too such as the New Carrollton Yard or the Falls Church Yard to name a couple more
Been eagerly awaiting this vid! I lived in the DC area back in the late 80s. Love the proverbial ride down memory lane (er, line?) and to see how things have changed over the years!
There are so many Hair Braiding Places at the Mall at Prince George's Plaza, which is currently located on Maryland Route 410 in Hyattsville, Maryland, which is the 12th Largest City in Prince George's County, Maryland.
I learned so much!! Thank you for showcasing this miraculous system. Sincerely appreciate the time your team puts into these videos, including research and videography. I share these videos as a reference all the time. Keep going!! Yellow, Orange, and Silver!! Perhaps secrets of the Dulles Airtrain, DC streetcar, and Congressional Metro too? MARC/VRE sounds like a heavy lift
I watched the construction of the Northern portion of the Green Line. Lake metro actually took 4 years to build. After Hyattsville station, they had to tunnel through a mountain to meet the elevated tracks.
Huh. I thought Greenbelt station was just outside the beltway (I used to access it from Edmonston Rd via Cherrywood), but it turns out only the yard is.
Have watched your other videos and this popping up is a nice surprise! I live in Cleveland but visit DC often and love Metro. It’s great to see every station vicariously since I mainly only ride the core of the system.
Great video! It's awesome to see Geoff's inspiration spread to other creators so we can learn about other transit around the world and your own spin on this makes it feel really unique and interesting :)
This is my favorite series on RU-vid. Looking forward to the Yellow, Orange and Silver line episodes! One thing that could have been cool to include in this episode is the Metro Test Track between Greenbelt and College park. Not many people know about it, but I always look out for it when I head to Greenbelt
Great video! I wish you would have noted that the College Park station has one of only three sheltered, gated bicycle parking facilities in the entire network. The other two are at Falls Church East and Vienna stations on the Orange Line. It would be great if more of the stations had these bike parking facilities, as they take up much less space than the massive car parking garages but can accommodate many, many more riders. Without them, it feels precarious to leave your bike at any other station.
I think there are plans for one in the new Potomac Yard station, but last time I was there, its future location was blocked off and marked “coming soon”
Hey Andy when you do silver line. It was suppose to have an underground station at Dulles Airport and then have a moving walkway underground under the traffic loop but was scrapped due to cost. Also at the end of silver line in Ashburn there is a rail yard that can be seen from the Greenway toll road.
Congress Heights is the only 21st-century subterranean station. The whole Branch Ave extension was the final piece of the original plan, meaning the last bit to use conventional architecture. Also, did they remove the green and yellow flashing signs from L'enfant?
they did very recently for whatever reason. I don't really understand why cause it is the last stop before the Green and Yellow part ways so it was useful to warn people to be careful of that. I noticed they also took it down at Rosslyn, Stadium Armory and I think East Falls Church too for whatever reason
9:54 I’m pretty sure the whole premise behind the arch stations was to save on money since they were cheaper to create, so it was likely done for budget reasons.
Fairly certain Suitland is pronounced more closely to "sweet-land". Also one fun tidbit missed, the tracks between Columbia Heights and Georgia Ave-Petworth, namely those under Park Rd NW, is the only spot in the system where the tracks run stacked on top of each other as opposed to side by side/in parallel tunnels. This was due to the narrowness of this road and to limit impact on the homes above.
Nice tidbit. But I have to mention that Suitland is pronounced 'soot-land' by the people I know who actually live there. Here's an example from a video I just found ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IhFERhBt844.html
It should also be noted that those tunnels along with the tunnels between Georgia Avenue Petworth and Fort Totten were the first tunnels in the system to be mined using the New Austrian tunneling method.
Love these videos! So nice to see different parts of the Metro. The videos have a nice relaxing feel and are a pleasure to watch! Hope there might be more on the other lines to come :)
In April 2006, I went to Navy Yard Station with other Washington Nationals fans as construction of Nationals Park was just beginning. The station, and neighborhood, looked so different then - little development on nearby M Street, a small station with little traffic similar to Waterfront. Look at the area now! Plenty of development, both business and residential, a thriving neighborhood complementing one of MLB's best ballparks. What an urban success!
I've enjoyed all of your videos so far. I can't wait for you to cover the rest of the lines. I'm from the Richmond area, but I like using the Metro when I go to DC.
15:42 Thank you for pointing out this milestone. After the station was opened, train operators are directed to announce that the station is the first station in Maryland on this side of the line when heading towards Branch Avenue or last station stop in Maryland when heading towards Greenbelt. This cause quite a bit of confusion due to Southern Avenue being a street in Washington, DC; however due to the stations position opposite of this milestone, the station indeed is located in Hillcrest Heights, MD.
I expected Eisenhower and Huntington to be included to knock out all the "North-South line" stations. Guess you could combine Yellow and Silver since they have only one branch that isn't interlined with the rest of the system when Orange has two branches (although Yellow + Orange would be about equal to the Dulles branch alone)
Another factoid about Congress Heights station is that it sits underneath St. Elizabeth’s, which was the first federally operated psych hospital in the US. They’ve been working on redeveloping the area for ages now, turning some of the older buildings into large apartments or sprinkling new developments throughout the complex. They reopened tours this summer of the preserved side across MLK, run by the DHS.
An other secret I forgot to mention. The Collage Park station has the shortest escalator in the system and the adjacent elevator has the shortest distance between the street and mezzanine levels.
@@andyontrack Based on the google Metrorail station view, yes. However to be absolutely sure, one would have to measure both of them, witch is what I did to compile the list of station with escalator with a vertical rise greater then 45': cambronj.blogspot.com/2021/04/div.html
Strangly, metro stations in VA seem lacking in the transit art department. I wonder if that is a fact. BTW, could you please share the link for the Naylor Road wins award article?
Seeing as the only experience I ever had with the DC Metro was in 2017, and over half the escalators were out of service, this is quite refreshing to see and hear nice things being said.
Wellp, my turn on a missed secret: The original Green Line southern terminus was supposed to be at Rosecroft Raceway in Oxon Hill...the original drawn plan for it was to loop thru the station and head back to Greenbelt a la NYC's 1 train at South Ferry when it looped back to the Bronx before the newer, straighter South Ferry station opened. Just throwing that out there.
That is not true. The original terminus was to have been Branch Avenue. Horse racing interests successfully lobbied to change it to the racetrack. Merchants and developers in the Branch Avenue area then sued successfully as it would turn out to have terminus returned to Branch Avenue.. So you are not wrong it was changed from Rosecroft to Branch Avenue but it was originally Branch Avenue.
Hi Andy! I don't know how else to contact you, so I figured I'd give this way a shot. I'm a local DC reporter who loves your videos. Any chance you'd like to be interviewed about the project? Let me know - thanks!
Do you think the commuter shortcut could be revived as some kind of express line into the city? Or would that be redundant or unnecessary? As someone who lives in the MD suburbs, my main reasons to use Metro is to get into DC downtown or to get to DCA, and some kind of way to speed up getting there from the end of the line, although I don’t know how practical.
Some stations on the Green are awfully distinctive with its architecture work especially Anacostia. I ride the Green an awful lot myself compared to some of the other lines and I got no complaints about it
5:56 as soon as you cut to that panning shot of the front of an old building by brain immediately replaced your voice with Jago Hazzard and I got very disoriented for a moment XD
Metro systems like this should be the bare minimum expected in cities within the richest nation in human history, yet here we are with DC's one-of-a-kind system...
I’m surprised you didn’t feature the (partially?) WMATA-owned dog park at 11th and Park between the Columbia Heights and Georgia Ave stops. It has an extremely deep ventilation shaft that dogs can play on and a worker entrance behind a locked fence.
I'm curious, did you have to pay a bunch of fares to get on and off the train so many times, or did you get a special pass from Metro? Love the series!
I don't know the voice of the new trains unfortunately, but here's a great video on the person behind "Step Back, Doors Closing": ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tG1RJW5RupE.html
