Favorite Arch Type

I know that probably this question has been asked, but what's your favorite type of underground vault? There are five different types:

Waffle
Dupont Circle
Farragut North
Metro Center
Gallery Place
Judiciary Square
Union Station
Navy Yard
Waterfront
L'Enfant Plaza
Archives
Mount Vernon Square
Shaw
U Street
Ballston
Virginia Square
Claredon
Court House
Rosslyn
Foggy Bottom
Farragut West
McPherson Square
Federal Triangle
Smithsonian
Federal Center SW
Capitol South
Eastern Market
Potomac Avenue
Stadium-Armory
Benning Road
Capitol Heights
Crystal City
Pentagon City
Pentagon

Total: 33
71% of underground stations

Arch I
Woodley Park
Cleveland Park
Van Ness
Tenleytown
Friendship Heights
Bethesda
Medical Center

Total: 7
15% of underground stations

Arch II
Columbia Heights
Georgia Avenue
Glenmont

Total:3
6% of underground stations

Arch III
Fort Totten (lower level)

Total: 1
2% of underground stations

London Underground style
Wheaton
Forest Glen

Total: 2
4% of underground stations

My favorite is Arch I. The stations seem so much larger.

I'm partial to the waffle style, myself. When my aunt first took me to Union Station on the Metro about eleven or twelve years ago, the grandiose beauty and futurism of the original underground Metro stations was forever embedded in my mind. Now, being in college in D.C. and living four blocks away from Farragut West (and two blocks away from Mister Bush's big, white house on a novel note), I still find myself in awe every time I descend the escalator into our capital's first-class Metro system. The various cost-saving Arch styles just don't have the same effect, in my opinion. I went to an anime convention a month ago in Adams Morgan and the Arch I style in the Woodley Park-Adams Morgan just doesn't have the same modern elegance as the traditional arch type. The water stains that show better on the arch style don't help, either.

"geoking66"
I know that probably this question has been asked, but what's your favorite type of underground vault? There are five different types:

Technically speaking the "Arch Types" are referred to in contractor construction drawings as “Train Room Vault”. The "Waffle" as referred to by Wayne Whitehorne at world.nycsubway.org/us/washdc are called coffers.

All types have sub types;

22 coffer, referred to by Wayne Whitehorne as "Waffle"

The 22 coffer design has four sub types;
22 coffer poured in place concrete island or twin platform station (this is the most common of this type)
22 coffer precast concrete (only one station is of this type Dupont Circle)
24 coffer poured in place concrete (Used in both train rooms in Metro Center)
26 coffer poured in place concrete (Used only in one station, upper level L'Enfant Plaza)
24 coffer poured in place concrete (Split level transfer stations, Rosslyn and Pentagon)

4 coffer again also referred to by Wayne Whitehorne as "arch I", "arch II" and "arch III"
The 4 coffer design has three sub types
4 coffer precast concrete island platform station (Stations north of Dupont Circle)
4 coffer precast concrete single track single side platform (Forest Glen and Wheaton)
4 coffer precast concrete island platform station (Variation of the single track single side platform, Used only in one station, lower level Fort Totten)

6 coffer again also referred to by Wayne Whitehorne as "arch II"
The 6 coffer design has two sub types
6 coffer poured in place concrete island platform station (Cost savings design that replaced 22 coffer design)
6 coffer precast concrete island platform station (Used only in one station, Columbia Heights)

The 4 and 6 coffer versions are bastardized versions of the classic Harry Weese 22 coffer design.

You probably figured out that I prefer the classic Harry Weese 22 coffer design. The shallow coffers found in only two station (Dupont Circle and Union Station) I believe are the most elegant examples of the design. The sharp fillets that can only be found in the coffers of the Smithsonian station looks wrong to my eye.

Waffle-definitely. My beef about the underground stations-especially in older parts of the system is that the indirect lighting is not bright enough. MACTRAXX

"MACTRAXX"
Waffle-definitely. My beef about the underground stations-especially in older parts of the system is that the indirect lighting is not bright enough.

You should have seen them when they were new. And I don't mean within weeks of the opening of the lines, I mean within week of when the lights were first turned on. They were multiple times brighter then they are now.

The biggest flaw in the indirect lighting schema is dirt, more precisely the accumulation of dirt on the light fixtures and the concrete that reflects the light. The other flaw is the color of the aggregate used in the concrete of the poured in place stations. The iron content of the sedimentary sand and gravel mined from pits in Princes George’s County reduces the reflective properties of the surfaces. All of the precast concrete stations used a lighter colored gravel mind from a rock quarries in western Fairfax and northern Prince William Counties in Virginia. To this day, even with the accumulated dirt the precast station are brighter then the poured in place stations.

Power washing helps quite a bit, but not enough to make them look like new. Some station have been 'white washed' with a thin coat of portland cement. (See the Farragut North images DSC_0131.JPG through DSC_0140.JPG) The white washing of the stations improves the reflective properties of the concrete better then just power washing.

When the station were built all of the surfaces were 'six second sand blasted'. This was done to kill the almost mirror like finish and minor flaws that was left behind when the fiberglass forms were removed. I was also done to deter graffiti applied with felt tipped markers. The problem that resulted from the sand blasting was it increased surface area for dirt to accumulate on.

SBJ: Interesting on how just by sources of concrete and sand can make a difference on just the image of the stations...speaking of dirt the steel dust from the trains are another factor - especially on the inter-track lighting. I recall looking at the lighting on the waffle-side as at Metro Center-the light covers collect dirt among other things and need to be cleaned off from time to time. The newer stations of other designs tended to be lit better. MACTRAXX

"MACTRAXX"
Interesting on how just by sources of concrete and sand can make a difference on just the image of the stations...speaking of dirt the steel dust from the trains are another factor - especially on the inter-track lighting.

Dust from brake shoes and rotors as well as wheel rail ware is just two of the internally generated sources. Their also is the particulate matter that come from the exhaust of diesel powered maintains equipment. A certain amount of the dirt also comes from the outside. As far as I know WMATA makes no effort to cleanup the dirt that accumulates in the tunnels that get blown into the stations by the trains.

I recall looking at the lighting on the waffle-side as at Metro Center-the light covers collect dirt among other things and need to be cleaned off from time to time. The newer stations of other designs tended to be lit better.

All of the lighting fixtures have dirt collected on them be they the florescent trough fixtures or the pylon fixtures.

Two pieces of equipment that WMATA doesn’t have that New York City Transit does have are electric locomotives and self propelled vacuum cars.