Why not express?

That sounds less helpful than having them signed by destination terminal.

If I'm downtown, I don't care where a train started at, but I do care if it's going to New Carrollton or Largo.

Sand Box John wrote:Past practices establishes line color based on line color at terminal of origin. As an example a train originating from Vienna regardless of the final destination would be Orange. Same for Blue, and Yellow. Mind you both of the southern terminals in Virginia have Blue, Yellow and Green destination codes. Same also applies to the eastern / northern terminals in Maryland Largo - Blue and Orange, New Carrollton - Blue and Orange, Greenbelt - Yellow, Green and Blue.

Outside of July 4 special service, I've noticed it's the opposite, where the line color reflects the destination rather than the origin. I've spotted trains signed as Orange to New Carrollton at Pentagon City that originated at either Huntington or Franc-Springd, and Blue Line trains signed for Franc-Springd that originated from New Carrollton at Cheverly.

The only situation where I've seen that not be the case outside of July 4 service and other major service changes requiring a special map (e.g. MLK weekend 2007) is when the Yellow Line is extended to Greenbelt due to whatever reason, and northbound trains from Huntington are signed as Yellows. I presume that those are signed Yellow because except for the last four stations, the entire route is already signed for Yellow Line service, and it would be too confusing in Virginia to sign those trains as Greens, though there is no technical reason not to, especially since southbound service would have to be signed Yellow due to going over the bridge.

Actually, I think this puts it best: The color chosen is based on where Metro is trying to place emphasis on the route. Thus trains utilizing the bridge with different-from-normal service are going to be Yellows, to emphasize that the train will be traveling via the bridge. The baseball short-turns are Green in order to emphasize that the trains will be following the Green route, plus to agree with signage at Navy Yard, which states that all trains are Green. Then the aforementioned put-in from New Carrollton was Blue to emphasize that it was going south from Rosslyn, and likewise for the Orange through Pentagon City, to emphasize that it would be turning north from Stadium-Armory. Thus the color will be chosen based on the origin or destination, depending on what part of the train's routing Metro is trying to emphasize.

July 4 remains a special case, however, since trains make movements then that never happen during regular service, like a considerable amount of single-tracking.

OK I know I'm comming late to the party here, but here are my 2 cents worth....

Express Trains will never work because of two simple reasons: 1) The design of the ATS subsystem, and 2) headway requirements to avoid passenger complaints. This is the true solution: AM Rush Run trains from (RED) Shady Grove to New York Ave (they can TB on a siding in Brentwood); And from Glenmont to Farragut North (TB in the pocket track); (ORANGE) New Carrollton to (alternate) Vienna and (YELLOW)Huntington; (BLUE)Franconia - Greenbelt; (GREEN)Branch Ave - Mt.Vernon Square; (SILVER) Largo to Whiele Ave (N Route). True it will confuse passangers for the first several months possibly but it would reduce crush-loaded trains and more effectively use rolling stock.

Second problem with express trains would be (sorry if this was addressed). Trains are limited to 35 MPH max passing through stations. With WMATAs sad history lately of jumpers I don't see the speeds being increased to allow express trains, also you would have to factor in crowded platforms (ever been on the platform at New Carrollton(AMTRAK) when a Acela passes through non-stop)

"WMATA Black-Black"
OK I know I'm comming late to the party here, but here are my 2 cents worth....

Express Trains will never work because of two simple reasons: 1) The design of the ATS subsystem, and 2) headway requirements to avoid passenger complaints.

ATS = Automatic Train Supervision, ATS is very low on the food chain when it comes to pushing trains through system. ATS is a subsystem within ATC that is used for maintain scheduling.

The overall signaling system is designed for 90 second headways on the trunk portions of system.

Trunk portions of system are:
Red: Shady Grove - Glenmont
Blue, Orange: D&G Junction - Rosslyn
Blue, Yellow: Pentagon - C&J Junction
Green, Yellow: F&L - Greenbelt

The primary limitation to achieving 90 second headways is the dwell times it takes to board and discharge passengers at stations. In my opinion there are two only 2 solution that would allow the reduction of dwell times:

Run all 8 car trains at the closed headways based on the dwell time need to board a train at the highest volume station on any given line.
Run all 8 car trains with a replace fleet of cars that have 4 doors per side.

The 4 doors per side solution would reduce the time it take to board and discharge a train by a third allowing dwell times to be reduced by the same.

This is the true solution: AM Rush Run trains from (RED) Shady Grove to New York Ave (they can TB on a siding in Brentwood); And from Glenmont to Farragut North (TB in the pocket track); (ORANGE) New Carrollton to (alternate) Vienna and (YELLOW)Huntington; (BLUE)Franconia - Greenbelt; (GREEN)Branch Ave - Mt.Vernon Square; (SILVER) Largo to Whiele Ave (N Route). True it will confuse passangers for the first several months possibly but it would reduce crush-loaded trains and more effectively use rolling stock.

Interesting, definitely an outside of the box way of effectively distributing rolling stock.

Second problem with express trains would be (sorry if this was addressed). Trains are limited to 35 MPH max passing through stations. With WMATAs sad history lately of jumpers I don't see the speeds being increased to allow express trains, also you would have to factor in crowded platforms (ever been on the platform at New Carrollton(AMTRAK) when a Acela passes through non-stop)

Not been addressed, however a valid point.

While we're on the subject of unconventional approaches...

Assuming that the limiting factors on the Red Line are the dwell times at Gallery Place and Metro Center, you could work around this by having every other train skip Gallery Place and stop at Metro Center, while the rest of the trains stop at Gallery Place and skip Metro Center. This effectively cuts the dwell times at those two stations in half from a scheduling perspective. If this lets you decrease headways on the rest of the line to 1.5 minutes from the current 2.5 minutes, then anyone headed to Metro Center or Gallery Place might potentially have a 30 second longer wait for a train (as trains to their destination will only come once every 3 minutes) but overall capacity is increased and people headed to other stations get more frequent service. People who board at Gallery Place and then transfer at Metro Center or vice versa (how many people actually do this?) would get screwed, but there's a plan on the books to build a pedestrian tunnel connecting the two stations so they could just walk between the stations or transfer at L'Enfant instead. Also, you'd probably have to get rid of the Grosvenor-Silver Spring short turn trains to avoid excessive waits for passengers going between the transfer stops and the outer stations.

This, of course, doesn't help with the Potomac River tunnel congestion on the other lines, and it also won't help if the longest dwell time is actually at Union Station or somewhere else. It will also confuse the tourists and occasional riders, but so will everything else that's been proposed...

jkovach

The problem with you skip station schema for Metro Center and Gallery Place is roughly 10% of the boarding in those stations are transfers. Also those two station rank the 2nd and 8th in boardings. WMATA is projecting them to be 1st and 2nd in boardings by 2030.

[b]jkovach[/b]


You could also adjust my idea and run a "downtown shuttle" between Farragut North & NY Ave with 4 car consists (that would only be 20 cars during rush hour)

Or you could use 6 car consists and they could be "super-gap" trains that can fill in when needed

Sand Box John wrote:jkovach

The problem with you skip station schema for Metro Center and Gallery Place is roughly 10% of the boarding in those stations are transfers. Also those two station rank the 2nd and 8th in boardings. WMATA is projecting them to be 1st and 2nd in boardings by 2030.

Again, the planned pedestrian tunnel between the two stations, should it actually get built, would help mitigate some of these problems. Especially if they were to equip it with moving sidewalks (don't know if that's in the plans already or not.)

In the WMATA projections, does a "boarding" at a transfer station mean "someone walking through a fare gate" or "someone getting on a train"?

"jkovach"
In the WMATA projections, does a "boarding" at a transfer station mean "someone walking through a fare gate" or "someone getting on a train"?

Boardings = Persons passing through a fare gate.

The 10% figure I quoted above was miss interpreted, it should have been 10% increase in peak transfers by 2030 compared to 2005.