23-05-19 PHOTOS: Potomac Yard

Every time the DC Metro opens one or more new stations they give out promotional pennants. The last two were fairly major consisting of the Silver Line phases 1 and 2. However infill stations also count and in May of 2023 the Metro opened its last new station for the foreseeable future, Potomac Yard (or Potomac Yards if one happens to be from Baltimore). Located between the Pentagon and downtown Alexandria, VA, the Potomac Yard is located on the site of the former RF&P rail yard of the same name where Pennsylvania Railroad and Conrail freight trains from the NEC would forward their carloads to either the RF&P or Southern Railway for destinations in the south. Ultimately railroad consolidation made this practice unnecessary and Potomac Yard the railroad yard ceased to be a thing in the mid-1990's. The availability of Potomac Yard for development happened to coincide with Northern Virginia's economic boom and in the 2010's plans by Amazon and other tech companies to build out the former Potomac Yard site spurred the need for direct DC Metro rail service. You can check out my photos of the opening day festivities here ( mirror ).

The DC Metro is known to open some of its new stations at odd times with Silver Line Phase 2 opening at 2pm on a Tuesday. However unlike both Silver Line phases, Potomac Yard did not have a mid-day ribbon cutting with an official first train. It would open with the regular start of service on Friday May 19th. Because there was no way (or incentive) for me to get there for the pre-dawn first train, I picked an appropriately early MARC commuter train, led by Kab Kar #7856 at the Halethorpe station, to get me to DC in time to hopefully get a station pennant before supplies ran out.

To get to the new Potomac Yard station I would take the Read Line from Union to Gallery Place and then transfer to a Yellow Line. While waiting for the latter here is a photo of WMATA 6k car #6098 on a Green Line routing at Gallery Place.

For much of the previous year the DC Metro's Long, aka Fenwick Bridge over the Potomac River was closed for repairs, resulting in the temporary elimination of the Yellow Line. The bridge had re-opened in time for the Potomac Yard inauguration and I got this forward looking video document whatever work had been carried out.



Although I wasn't on any sort of official first train, I still grabbed some video of my own personal first arrival at Potomac Yard with this southbound car view video starting at National Airport.



The new station is a pretty basic side platform affair with a new crossover and direct fixation track. Potomac Yard is on the Blue Yellow concurrency so there was a pretty constant stream of trains. The arrival board made use of LCD screens instead of LED dot matrix displays.

While most were 3k and 6k trains, like #3004 below, a few of the 76-car 2k fleet, like #2066, was still running around due to lingering issues with the 7k wheelsets.

The station has a single point of entry and exit at the north end, which results in a long walk for anyone getting on or off at the southern end of the train. Here 6k car #6168 sits under the north end mezzanine.

I was joined on the opening day festivities by Sandbox John, who had attended every Metro opening since day one, and even appeared on a pre-opening promotional film. Unfortunately he neglected to collect the pennants early in his streak and therefore lacks a complete set.

The old C-line right of way had already been planted over for visual remediation. Because the station was on park service property, a lot of work was put into the aesthetics of the station. This contributed heavily to the $300 million cost. The station does contain a "secret" exit to the adjacent Potomac bike trail via two elevators from the mezzanine outside of fare control.

Of course the 7k cars were out and about, but their proportion was still lagging due to the ongoing wheelset repairs.

Because the new station would create additional power draw from acceleration and deceleration, the existing substation was expanded with two new transformers.

22-11-15 PHOTOS: Silver Line Phase II

In July of 2014, the Washington DC Metro (WMATA) debuted the first phase of its Silver Line to Dulles Airport and Loudon County and I was on the first non-VIP westbound train to depart West Falls Church. Eight years later it was finally time to open the second phase and despite a poorly chosen schedule and awful weather I managed the same feat except I managed to get on the VIP train. To learn the story you can read on or check out the full gallery here ( mirror ).

In 2014, the first phase opening was scheduled for a weekend morning which made it pretty easy to attend. Unfortunately the phase 2 opening was set for the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, which required me having to leave work early and make and catch a train with 7k car #7694 at Greenbelt.

Pacing a CSX intermodal train on the adjacent Capitol Sub west of Greenbelt.



The on board maps had already been updated. The phase 2 segment would open a total of six stations between Wiehle-Reston and Ashburn including flagship stop at Dulles International Airport.

The other problem was the absolutely abysmal weather. Mid-November is always cool, but this day was outright cold with a miserable drizzle that never let up and blocked the waning late afternoon sun. Here we find 6k car #6120 that due to service cutbacks wound up leading the final "Phase 1" arrival at Wiehle-Reston.

The plan for a VIP train to depart Wiehle-Reston at the proscribed time and run express to Ashburn at which the first two revenue trains would begin their journeys. As you can see here the Ashburn express is showing on the track #2 departure board, however the "classic style" 6k trainset was occupying track #2.

Of course the Metro brass wasn't going to put the VIP's on a "classic" style train and I think the plan was to pull the 6k into the pocket and replace it with another 7k set, but then the VIP ceremony was delayed by about 20 minutes and the decision was made to use the 7k set led by #7646 on track 1 and cross it over via the Wiehle-Reston pocket track.

The VIP train, dubbed the Silver Ticket Express, was intended for both VIPs and a group of 50 regular riders chosen by lottery. I had been expecting a degree of access control, but when the ribbon-cutting participants finished up with their thing and marched down to the platform, the 7k train on track #1 was just sitting there with all of its doors open like any other. Being announced as "Ashburn express departing on track #1" I decided to just get on the front car that was only populated by a pair of "winning" railfans.

Although one of the two fans was able to finagle his GoPro up on the front window I did my best to document the express run zooming through both front windows. The results weren't great due to the rain, but I still managed to capture the express-ness. Unfortunately the train had to reduce speed through the stations and was held to 45mph to reach Ashburn on schedule.

22-08-21 PHOTOS: Wawa

In 1986 SEPTA temporarily suspended service on its R3 West Chester service beyond the Elwyn Station where the line became largely single track. The suspension was ostensibly to fix track issues that had slowed service on the branch, however it soon became clear that SEPTA was looking to truncate service to Elwyn/Media and instead reached a deal with Chester County to expand parking and service to the Exton station on the much faster R5 Paoli. The line was officially taken out of service in 1991 and besides stock traffic to a quarry and the use of a testing and training facility in Leni the line became a zombie, officially still "temporarily" suspended, but with service restoration increasingly unlikely.

In 2005 plans were made to restore service to a new Wawa station and park and ride off busy US Route 1 in Wawa, Pennsylvania. Originally intended to cost $50 million and be completed in 2010, circumstances resulted in near endless delays with the project ultimately being completed, much to the surprise of many, in 2022 for a cost of $100 million. As this was the first expansion of the SEPTA Regional Rail system in over 20 years I naturally had to be there for the inaugural departure and arrival on August 21st 2022. You can see the full set of photos, which include an additional visit to the East Penn Railroad, here ( mirror ). If you are interested in some 2015 coverage of the West Chester Branch before this partial restoration and rebuild, you can read a separate article here.

Although the new Wawa Station was located at the location of the old Wawa station, SEPTA wasn't about to miss an opportunity to shake down the local Philadelphia Area convenience store chain of the same name. After threats to use alternative names like Middletown Township or Sheetz, Wawa eventually coughed up $5 million for the "naming rights", however it did result in some snazzy branding.

The inaugural departure was set to leave the new Wawa station before dawn on Sunday, August 21st requiring those who wished to ride to get up early and, most likely, drive to the new R3 terminus. Intended to be a new transportation hub, the station has a building, vehicle loop and cavernous parking facility. unfortunately the Wawa station building does not (yet) contain a Wawa retail location, although there are two within walking distance for all of one's delicious coffee needs.

On the well lit, high level island platform, Wawa wrapped SEPTA Silverliner V #853 was awaiting its scheduled departure.

As SEPTA has slowly expanded its selection of accessible platforms it has generally avoided the use of costly elevators, instead making do with ramps.

Because of the Silverliner V's railfan windows, I was able to capture the entirety of the outbound trip between Wawa and Elwyn on video. The run took a few minutes longer than scheduled in part due to a report of deer on the tracks and some signal anomalies at Elwyn.



My plan was to be on board both the first departure and arrival from the new station and I pretty much had my choice of R3 station to accomplish this. I selected Clifton-Alden for its proximity to the Route 102 suburban trolley. Silverliner V #830 was on the rear of the first inbound run.

The first outbound (to Wawa) train was led by SEPTA Silverliner V #816.

Once again I was able to grab some video from the head end of the first ever R3 Wawa as it traveled between Media and Wawa.



Local TV news crews were on hand for the first inbound arrival.

The station's single island platform serves one through track and one stub terminal track, although there is space to extend the stub track through if West Chester service is ever restored. The West Chester Railroad briefly ran through excursions from their base in West Chester in the 2000's until SEPTA allowed its portion of the line to deteriorate sufficiently to stop the practice. It is unclear if SEPTA will remedy the situation any time soon.

At the city end of the platform the line immediately enters a series of interlockings built to serve a new storage yard on the site of the old Leni training facility. Note the stub switch to serve the old PRR Octoraro Branch which used to branch off here en-route to a connection with the Port Road.

After the departure of the second inbound trip I headed down to the station building that comes equipped with bathrooms and a bunch of local historical information on the walls.

As it was on my way back south I stopped by the East Penn Railroad Octoraro branch shoppe complex at the former PRR station in Kennett Square. East Penn is currently working the line with GP38-2 #2179 and GP18 #1800.

That's all for the Wawa station opening. Definitely expect a follow-up visit during an upcoming Mid-Winter Trip.

14-07-26 PHOTOS: Silver Line Opening Day

Yeah so DC Metro's Silver Line opened back in July, but 2000 photos from my latest transcontinental Amtrak trip delayed things a bit so here is a little July In Christmas. My plan was to go to Largo Towne Centre and catch the first through Silver Line train from there to avoid any crowds that might board at West Falls Church. I calculated exactly which train I would need to catch to get to WFC by the noon opening time. Unfortunately things didn't quite work exactly as planned.

Here is the story and you can find all the photos here.

Largo Towne Center was all duded up with Silver Line banners in anticipation of the opening day.

I had parked at NCR and managed to get to Largo with more than little time to spare so I went about taking pictures of the various Metro trains that pulled in, like #2067.

#3291.

 #3208

And #3165.

Unfortunately, the train I anticipated would be the one to take me all the way to Reston had a misinformed operator who bitched at me for taking photos. She then proceeded to get shy when I took her photo.

I also captured the incident on video.



On the other end of that train was #3112, which I had calculated to be the first westbound train over the Silver Line, although the train's own destination sign still read "Orange Line".

The automated departure sign seemed to confirm it however.

Unfortunately, by the time that train got to Addison Rd, someone changed the route to an Orange Line, so I got off and waited a headway capturing this outbound Orange Line train with #5162. Not sure how often Orange Line trains ran on this route.

I waited a headway, but even when that train got to West Falls Church I discovered it had been switched to an Orange routing due to a delay on the Silver Line with the VIP train. Instead of having the eastbound and westbound trains pass, the VIPs would need to get completely off the Silver Line before a westbound could proceed.

Here is a standard Orange Line train at West Falls Church.

Crowds at West Falls Church.

#6168 was the lead car of the last non-Silver Line Largo originating Orange Line train.