WMATA Silver Line Phase Two Grand Opening

Yesterday marked what is likely the last significant extension of the Washington Metrorail system.  At about 2 PM, the second phase of the Silver Line opened to the public, extending the line by about 11 miles from Whiele-Reston East to Ashburn.  A total of six new stations opened, including one at Dulles Airport, bringing the total number of stations in the system to 97 and the total system mileage to 129 miles.  (A 98th station, Potomac Yard, is an infill station that is scheduled to open in early 2023 so while one more station will be constructed, no track miles will be added.)

Unfortunately, I was unable to get out to the new stations in daylight and the weather was less than cooperative, which meant I was unable to really appreciate the new trackage.  I think part of the excitement surrounding a new transit line is seeing something new from the train, especially when it runs above ground as the Silver Line extension does, and I missed out on that yesterday.  I do intend to ride again in daylight very soon, but there is also something special about doing it on day one.  The weather and lighting conditions also made for challenging photography conditions, but I think some of these images are decent (even by my usual standards) and I am sharing them now.

Interior display on a 7000 series train showing all the stations on both phases of the Silver Line, November 15, 2022

View of the main terminal at Dulles Airport as seen from the Metrorail station platform, November 15, 2022

Train arriving at Dulles Airport with the terminal building in the background, November 15, 2022

Alstom 6132 at Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Train arriving at Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Kawasaki 7510 leaving Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station Mezzanine, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station Mezzanine, November 15, 2022

Dulles Airport Station Mezzanine, November 15, 2022

Ashburn Station, November 15, 2022

Ashburn Station, November 15, 2022

Ashburn Station, November 15, 2022

Ashburn Station entrance pylon, November 15, 2022

6000 Series train showing the “planning name” of the Ashburn station on its destination sign rather than the actual name, November 15, 2022

Breda Rehab 3030 at Herndon Station, November 15, 2022

Your webmaster showing off a ceremonial station opening pennant in front of the newly updated Metro map

 

How the Grand Canyon and Transportation are Connected

On our 2019 summer vacation, after spending several days in Las Vegas with the Oren’s Transit Page extended family, Mrs. OTP and I rented a car to drive to the Grand Canyon for a few more days of vacation on our own.  Our rationale was that seeing as how difficult it is to get to the Grand Canyon and that we were in the general neighborhood so to speak, we might as well take advantage of the opportunity to go since neither one of us had been there before.  We were just two of the 5,974,411 people to visit the Grand Canyon that year, but getting there is not a simple unless one lives very close to the Grand Canyon itself.  

View of the Grand Canyon, August 20, 2019

Today, about 90 percent of visitors to the Grand Canyon go to the South Rim, and we were among them.  The South Rim is about a 4 hour drive from Phoenix and about a 5 hour drive from Las Vegas.  The closest airport with commercial service to the South Rim is Flagstaff, only about 90 minutes away from the Grand Canyon by car, but service there is limited to flights to and from Phoenix. Dallas, and Denver, so most would need to connect in order to get there.  However, prior to the improvement of area roads in the 1960s, getting to the Grand Canyon was even more complicated than it is today.  

For the first half of the 20th Century, basically the only way in to and out of what is now Grand Canyon Village was by public transport of various sorts.  At first, travelers had to hire buggies or rent horses from the tour operators who set up along the South Rim starting in the 1890s in order to travel from the railroad depots at Williams, Flagstaff, or Ash Fork to the canyon.  train.  The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway built a 64 mile long branch line from Williams in order to bring tourists to the canyon’s edge, before the area was part of the National Park System.  The line was completed in 1901.  The railway also built the El Tovar Hotel adjacent to its Grand Canyon station.  One could make a very strong argument that if it weren’t for the railroad, the critical mass needed to advocate for preserving the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon might not have been realized so quickly, and the area would not have come under the jurisdiction of the federal government in 1906 and ultimately the National Park Service in 1919.  

Grand Canyon Railway Depot

Grand Canyon Railway Depot, August 20, 2019

While the branch line to the South Rim was not used by passenger services after 1968 and freight service after 1974 until private investors and operators reinstated the service in 1989, it has become quite popular since its restoration.  There is at least one round trip each day from Williams to the South Rim, and about 25,000 passengers use the line each year.  For many years, there was an organized transfer between the Southwest Chief at the Williams Junction Amtrak Station and the Williams Depot used by the Grand Canyon Railway, though this was discontinued at the end of 2017.  

EMD F40PH 239

EMD F40PH 239 at the Grand Canyon Railway Depot, August 20, 2019

Once at the park itself, transit still plays an important role in how people get around.  The National Park Service has operated a system of shuttle bus routes along the South Rim since 1974, in order to reduce vehicular traffic within the park itself.  In fact, to get to viewpoints along the Hermit Road, one must use the shuttles at certain times of year.  The system works quite well, as the buses allow hikers who do not wish to walk along the 13 miles of the South Rim where shuttle bus service is available to use the bus for some segments instead.    

New Flyer C40LF C-10

New Flyer C40LF C-10 at Hermit’s Rest, August 20, 2019

So while the transportation at the Grand Canyon today is not a conventional public transit system, it is difficult to imagine what the Grand Canyon National Park would look like were it not for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway bringing tourists to the South Rim in the early 20th century or the shuttle bus system that has been in operation since the 1970s.  And for those hardy travelers who wish to experience the difficulties of getting to the even more remote North Rim (where only ten percent of Grand Canyon visitors go), despite being only about 10 miles from the South Rim Visitor Center as the crow flies, it is a 225 mile, 5 hour long drive from one rim to the other.  

Riding to the Southernmost Subway Station in the World

Many are familiar with some of the world’s geographic extremes.  The lowest point on earth is the Dead Sea.  The highest point is Mount Everest.  The geographic center of the lower 48 United States is about four miles west of Lebanon, Kansas.  But have you ever wondered where the world’s southernmost subway station is located?  Wonder no more and keep reading!

Located at 34.643028 degrees south58.461611 degrees west, the Plaza de los Virreyes – Eva Perón station of the Buenos Aires Underground holds the distinction of being the southernmost subway station in the world.  As is the case with many things of this nature, there is some dispute as to whether Plaza de los Virreyes should get the title.  The Parliament Station in Melbourne, Australia is further south.  However, that station serves “suburban railway” trains, not subway trains.  What is the difference between a suburban railway and a subway?  Now we’re getting into some subjective details, but I don’t think many people would consider SEPTA’s Suburban Station or New York Penn Station, even though both of them are underground, to be “subway” or “Metro” stations.  The trains serving Parliament Station in Melbourne are akin to commuter rail trains that one might find in North America, and therefore, I don’t personally consider Parliament to be a subway station.

There isn’t a whole lot that is particularly noteworthy about the Plaza de los Virreyes station once you get there, other than the feeling that the tracks at the southern end of the station mark the “end of the world” so to speak and that no subway train anywhere can take you further south.  The tilework is unremarkable.  The station’s mezzanine feels a lot like just about any other “end of the line” terminal station mezzanine, with a number of onward connections available at the street level.  The lighting for photos of trains in the station itself isn’t all that great.  But despite the lack of noteworthiness in other ways, Plaza de los Virreyes gets to be the southernmost subway station in the world and no one can take that distinction away from it (for now).  

Even if Plaza de los Virreyes itself is perhaps a bit underwhelming, the journey to get there is not.  Following the 2013 retirement of the 100 year old “La Brugeoise” cars that operated on Line A, Line E of the Buenos Aires Underground has the distinction of operating the city’s oldest subway cars, the CAF-GEE cars, that were manufactured in 1968.  Some of these cars have not been refurbished and still feature wooden seats and incandescent lighting, and some aren’t even painted in the standard yellow livery that most Buenos Aires Underground trains feature.  The artwork at some of the stations along the journey to Plaza de los Virreyes is in fact eye-grabbing and worth closer examination if you have time.  Line E may not be the busiest or fastest line in Buenos Aires, but it certainly has a certain “blue collar” charm to it, and knowing no train in the world takes you further south definitely gets the line some extra brownie points.  It is definitely worth exploring if you find yourself in Buenos Aires!


The following is a selection of images from Plaza de los Virreyes – Eva Perón Station and the rest of Line E of the Buenos Aires Underground.  

For additional photos from Buenos Aires, please click here and stay tuned for future Travelogue posts!

 

Bus Photo of the Month: November 2017

Gillig Advantage/BRT 4061

Gillig Advantage/BRT 4061

Location: Medical Center Station, Bethesda, MD
Operator of Vehicle: Ride On (Montgomery County Transit)
Date of Photo: October 6, 2017

Exactly one month ago, Ride On, the county operated bus system in Montgomery County, MD, launched its first limited stop service, Route 101 or the Ride On Extra.  This route uses a special fleet of BRT styled Gillig Advantage buses.  I’m not a huge fan of WMATA’s “MetroExtra” branding for several reasons, but I really like how Ride On has taken this brand from another agency in the area and applied it to itself.  The paint scheme and name is clearly derived from WMATA, and to Ride On’s credit, the paint scheme makes it clearer that an approaching bus is a limited stop one than Metro’s scheme.  In its first month of service, I had three occasions to take this service, and found the trip to be extremely speedy, though I was admittedly riding against the peak direction of travel each time.  The buses have WiFi and USB charging ports on board, but I did not use either feature any of the times I have been on these buses.  The buses also still have that new bus smell, so be sure to check it out soon if you want to experience that, too.  The Ride On Extra currently operates between Lakeforest Mall and Medical Center Station during weekday rush hours.

For more photos of the Ride On Extra, please click here

Kansas City’s Train Themed Restaurant

When I visited Kansas City in May of 2014, I read about a peculiar restaurant that I suspected would be worth my time to try out.  It is called Fritz’s, and it has two locations in Kansas City, KS as well as a location in the Crown Center in Kansas City, MO.  The restaurant is certainly one of a kind as patrons place their orders by telephone and then have their food delivered to them by train!  The restaurant’s website explains this system was developed by its founder in order to reduce labor costs and wasn’t necessarily meant to evoke a train theme, but over the years it has gained a reputation for this theme!  The train that delivers your food is far from the only train related thing in the place.  There are model trains running around the entire restaurant, the menus have a train motif, and so on.  I don’t remember the food being particularly memorable, but that might be on account of my not eating meat, and burgers seem to be their specialty.  But if you find yourself in Kansas City, it is definitely worth checking out!

I made a video of my food being delivered when I was there but I can’t seem to post it successfully to this site, so I am sharing two other videos that I found on YouTube from other customers so you get a sense of what the food delivery system here is like.

 

For more information, including locations and other information, visit Fritz’s website at www.fritzskc.com.  

System Review: San Juan, PR

Siemens 25 at Sagrado Corazon, March 20, 2016

I was in Puerto Rico for a week of vacation back in March.  The reality of public transit in Puerto Rico is that outside of San Juan, whether you are a tourist or resident of the island, you really need to drive to get to where you are going.  Formal, organized public transportation is pretty much nonexistent outside of San Juan, and even intercity public transportation is often limited to “publicos”, shared vans that operate on an ad-hoc basis.  However, within San Juan itself, the transit system can be relied upon and is a less harrowing experience than trying to navigate the city streets by car.

The bus system, Autoridad Metropolitana de Autobuses de Puerto Rico, operates a mix of Orion Vs, Orion VIIs, and Gillig Advantages, equipment that you’d find pretty much anywhere else in the continental United States.  The fleet itself has about 200 buses and there are about 30 routes criscrossing the city.  Unfortunately, despite the picture you might make based on reading those statistics, the utility of the system is a bit more limited.  Service ceases to operate by 9 PM on weekdays and 8 PM on Saturdays, and only two routes have any Sunday service to speak of.  Also, bus stops have no information about what routes stop there, there are no posted schedules, and there is no real time information available for passengers, one really needs to know where he or she is going ahead of time.

Artwork at the Sagrado Corazon Station, March 20, 2016

There is one rapid transit service on the island, the Tren Urbano that serves San Juan and some of the surrounding area.  However, the line is practically useless to anyone other than people living or traveling along its single route, and I know people who are from Puerto Rico who have never set foot on it.  Unlike the bus system, Tren Urbano operates 7 days a week.  However, service is quite limited outside of rush hours.  I rode on a Sunday when the trains ran every 15 minutes, though with a slight decrease in frequency, the line could be operated with only two trainsets instead of the three that I saw in operation.  Most of the line is elevated, but there are sections with stations in open cuts as well as s short underground segment.  The trains didn’t feel especially fast, especially considering the age of the system (it opened in 2004) and how straight much of the track was.  As is often the case with new stations, each one featured artwork, and I liked some of what I saw quite a bit.  Unfortunately, the 15 minute headways deterred me from exploring any stations other than the two end of the line stations (I parked at Bayamon, rode to Sagrado Corazon, and rode back to Bayamon to return to the rental car).  The trains themselves were comfortable.  The system is operated automatically, but each train has an operator on board to control door operation and make announcements despite the presence of automated announcements as well.

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Perhaps most noteworthy in the entire Puerto Rican transit experience is that both the buses and Tren Urbano use fare media identical to New York City’s.  Same fareboxes on the buses (they don’t accept bills in Puerto Rico either) and same vending machines on the Tren Urbano, down to the graphics on the touchscreens!  I didn’t try using my Metrocard as payment, but it sure felt likely that they would have worked had I tried!

I hope to see an expansion of the Tren Urbano to make it more useful to more people in the traffic choked San Juan area and expansion of the bus system hours to make it more useful in the evenings and on Sundays.  Additional information for wayfinding would also be helpful for tourists and residents alike.  However, the system could be relied upon within San Juan itself for most of my needs while I was there..  Outside of San Juan, I was glad to have a car.

Check out all of my photos from my trip in the Puerto Rico section!

Out with the Strippenkaart, In with the OV-chipkaart

Since 1980, the same ticket can be used on both this tram in Rotterdam and the Metro in Amsterdam (pictured below)

With the advent of smart cards and “open payment systems”, some might be wondering how long it will be before individual transit fare cards for each city are replaced by a single card that can be used anywhere.  In the Netherlands, that day came over 35 years ago.  Six years earlier, the the government standardized transit rates (as opposed to letting individual cities set their own rates).  When the “strippenkaart” (literally meaning strip ticket) was introduced in October of 1980, a single ticket could be used on pretty much any non-NS transit vehicle in the entire country.  You just had it stamped by the driver or conductor or at a validator for the number of zones you were going to travel.  When you ran out of strips, you had to get a new ticket.  This was the system that was in place when I was in the Netherlands for the first time in 2008, and I used my strippenkaart throughout the country during the four days I was there.

However, even during that visit, things were starting to change.  The country was starting to move to smart card technology and began to gradually introduce the OV-chipkaart over the span of several years.  An initial beta test of the technology was conducted on the Rotterdam Metro in 2005, and the OV-chipkaart was the only fare media valid on that system by the time I was there in 2008.  By mid-2010, all Rotterdam and Amsterdam fares were paid with OV-chipkaart, and the strippenkaart was phased out incrementally in the rest of the country by November 2011.

Since the Dutch national tariff system is still zone based, passengers must not only tap their OV-chipkaart at the start of a journey, but also when they exit a vehicle.  If transferring, they must tap in again on the second vehicle and the card calculates the appropriate fare.  However, in order to ensure that travelers have enough money on their card for a long trip, a minimum of 4 EUR (4.42 USD at the time of this writing) is required to board a bus, tram, or metro and 20 EUR (22.12 USD) is required for a trip on NS, and one cannot board if only a lesser amount is available on the card.  It also costs 7.50 EUR (8.29 USD) just to purchase the card itself, which is more expensive than most other places that require you to purchase your transit card.  By comparison, Smartrip in Washington, DC is 2 USD, a Metrocard in New York City is 1 USD, an Oyster in London is 3 GBP (3.,97 USD), an anonymous Rav-Kav in Israel is 5 NIS (1.29 USD), and a personalized Rav-Kav is issued at no cost.

The old strippenkaart were not valid on Dutch railway trains (Nederlandse Spoorwegen), however the OV-chipkaart is now valid on NS and paper tickets are no longer available for travel within the Netherlands (paper tickets are required for international travel).  Like with the buses and trams, one must tap in and tap out at the start and end of a train journey.

In theory, the idea of a nationwide farecard is a nice idea, and I think such things will become more common as time goes on.  However, for someone only spending a few days in the Netherlands, the OV-chipkaart has a high upfront cost, requires high balances in order to be valid on all modes and especially intercity trains (a bit of an issue for those hoping to have a zero balance after traveling to Schiphol Airport at the end of a trip), and finding out about tourist passes is difficult.  I’m impressed at the Netherlands’s ability to set up a nationwide ticketing system in the 1980s and the fact that they updated it to be a smart card system in recent years, but the ease of use, especially for visitors, could be improved.  However, as “open payment systems” that allow the use of credit cards or smartphones as fare media become more widespread, perhaps the upfront costs for tourists can be eliminated as those technologies are introduced.