Franconia-Springfield to Greenbelt Service

[Sand Box John]

New Rail Service, Franconia-Springfield to Greenbelt (764 KB PDF file)
Blue Line Realignment and Feedback from Rider Survey
October 2008

See system map showing service as Brown line on page 7.

Also see Blue Line Realignment (413 KB PDF file) dated 02 14 2008

This idea is not new. Revised Rail Fleet Management Plan ( 3.38 MB PDF file) dated 06 01 2007 labeled this proposed service as the Aqua line on PDF pages 52, 54, 55, 57 and 58.
It first appeared on PDF page 41 in volume I chapter 2 of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project FEIS (1.62 MB PDF file) dated 02 05 2006.

[Sand Box John]

Split of Metro Line Has Many Riders Singing the Blues

By Robert Thomson (Dr. Gridlock)
Sunday, November 16, 2008

Link to article referred to in the third paragraph.

Breaking the Blue Line Jams

By Lena H. Sun

Sunday, October 26, 2008

[Tristan]

Welcome back John.  Glad to see you giving us the close-to-inside scoop on all things Metrorail.

Don't be a stranger!

[OrionFlyer]

I read that it may be a brown line. I think that will work out perfectly. A whole new rail line for peak hours only. Franconia Springfield - Greenbelt.

[coneyraven]

Have you seen the map with the Brown Line?  It looks like crap --

[Sand Box John]

'coneyraven'
Have you seen the map with the Brown Line?  It looks like crap --

Pun intended?

Seriously thought, I don't think the map shown in the document I link to will be the version that will be displayed aboard the train and in the stations.

It would look better with the Yellow line to the left of the other pairs of lines.

[OrionFlyer]

Here it is:

http://wmata.com/about/rac/racdocs/docs/Blue%20Line%20Split%20RAC%20Presentation,%20October%208,%202008.pdf#page=7

I can't think of any other color it could be. Brown just doesn't seem right.

[Antozilla]

Well brown line is quite right.  A very bad deal for anyone from S. Arlington, Alexandria, and S. Fairfax County.  Bottom line, we don;'t want to go there we want to go to the city core.  I note the Arlington County Transit advisory Committee voted against this,and the RAC was not keen on it either.  When you looked at the staff presentation, the survey and statistical work was either intentionally wrong or just childish.

Oh and they would need TWO new colors. One for the brown line (so appropriately named) and the other for the orange line trains that would go to Largo. 

[Sand Box John]

Antozilla
Oh and they would need TWO new colors. One for the brown line (so appropriately named) and the other for the orange line trains that would go to Largo.

Not an issue. Prior to the deployment if electronic destination signs line color was assigned based on the sign color of the terminal station destination sign. Today line color is based on the line color at the starting terminal station.

WMATA has assigned multiple line colors for the same terminal station using different destination codes.

New Carrollton
Orange 20
Blue 21

Largo
Orange 55
Blue 77

Stadium/Armory
Orange 36
Blue 66
Yellow 30

Mount Vernon Square
Blue 38
Green 46
Yellow 28

Franconia-Springfield
Blue 16
Green 39
Yellow 26

Huntington
Yellow 31
Blue 21
Green 48

Greenbelt
Green 44
Yellow 24
Blue 71

What WMATA will likely do is change Blue to Brown on the Mount Vernon Square and Greenbelt destination codes and change Green to Brown on the Huntington and Franconia-Springfield destination codes.

There are 12 unassigned destination codes in the destination code table.

Two destination codes were assigned to the Dulles route when the destination code table was originally created.

[Antozilla]

John please explain more as the numbers mean nothing to me at this point. 

[Perry]

The numbers are the destination sign codes.

[Tristan]

I wonder how an LED sign would display silver and brown?

[Perry]

The silver would probably look rather gray while bown, that would be hard to show on a screen, maybe it would look more beige?

[Sand Box John]

Antozilla
John please explain more as the numbers mean nothing to me at this point.

The numbers above are 19 of the 100 destination codes that are used to route trains across the railroad from their point origin to their final destination and display destinations station names on the destination signs.

The destination codes are normally automatically assigned to a train based on the manual input of a train number before a train leaves the storage yard.

When a train enters ATC (Automatic Train Control) territory, wayside train control will receive a series of coded signals from a train by way of TWC (Train to Wayside Communication) that tells wayside train control what the train number is and how many cars are in the train. Wayside train control will look in the schedule to find what destination code is assigned to that train number and automatically assign the destination code. As a train travels along the railroad the local wayside train control uses the destination code in the TWC signal transmitted from a train to route the train through the proper path at the various interlockings on its way to the trains final destination.

Of the 100 destination codes in the destination code table 25 codes are assigned to nonrevenue destination movements (pockets tracks, yards, connector tracks and terminal stations), 3 codes have no destinations assigned to them but will display text on the destination signs. As pointed out before 12 codes are unassigned. The remaining codes 60 are assigned to terminal stations and other stations that can be used as final destinations.

At the various interlocking on the railroad selected destination codes that are manually inputted by the train operator will route trains through an interlocking along a non normal route.

Table of WMATA destination codes

Tristan
I wonder how an LED sign would display silver and brown?

From what Oren has told me the colors displayed on the destinations signs use discrete color LEDs. I am not sure how the color brown will be displayed.

Computer generated renderings of the 7k cars have lead me to believe that the LEDs in the destinations signs on those cars will have RGB LEDs that will allow the text in the station name to be displayed in the appropriate line color.

[btconet]

Here it is:

http://wmata.com/about/rac/racdocs/docs/Blue%20Line%20Split%20RAC%20Presentation,%20October%208,%202008.pdf#page=7

I can't think of any other color it could be. Brown just doesn't seem right.

I guess you could do like Chicago and label it the Pink Line, though that seems a bit more appropriate as a short service of the Red Line, say Dupont Circle to New York Avenue.

I guess there's Gold or Sea Green, but they'd likely be too close to their main routes.

I actually like the idea, as it offers new opportunities and an alternative for VRE commuters from Springfield.  Besides, I've not heard any constructive criticism that addresses a solution the bottlenecking issue.