The Washington Metro

I love travelling on the Washington Metro (OK there are times - in the rushhour when I've waited for a seemingly unending time in L'Enfant Plaza making the connection between the train from Capitol South on the Blue Line to the yellow line to Huntington, when loads of green trains come through & the platform is full - and when my train finally arrives there are no seats - that I have less than generous thoughts). Mainly it's good fun. On my early visits to the City I would ride the Metro discovering new areas on the weekends when Congress was closed. (I fell in love with Rockville as a result of riding the Red Line.

There is a very useful website - http://www.wmata.com/ which has details of the system and the various stations. As I write at my side is the very informative "StationMasters DC Area Metrorail Atlas".

GoRemy has written and performed a great song about the Metro - a little critical - but tongue in cheek, and I enjoy watching it out of affection for the Metro.

Flying into Washington DC

There are three main airports serving the Washington DC area. The most famous is Washington Dulles. It is situated 26 miles from downtown Washington in northern Virginia. It is named in honour of John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's Secretary of State.

Dulles website

The closest to the city is National Airport, which was renamed the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in 1988 - though people refer to it as "National", "Washington National", "Reagan", or "Reagan National". It was built in 1940-41on mudflats alongside the Potomac. The yellow and blue lines on the Metro serve the airport.



National Airport website



To the north of the city, linked by a train service into Union Station is BWI (Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport ). It is about 30 miles from Washington and 10 miles from Baltimore. It became operational in 1950.

BWI website

To drink or not?

During the summer (not relevant now as it is bitterly cold in the UK) - notices on the London Underground advise travellers to take bottled water with them as they travel. Due to problems with the summer heat in the system - that water is needed. It is not unusual to see people drinking and even eating on the trains. However don't do it on the Washington Metro!

You'll often read of similar stories to the following -

"Metro officials in the U.S. capital have had enough of messy eaters breaking no-food rules -- as 12-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth learned when she was arrested at a subway stop for eating french fries.

Metro spokesman Ray Feldman said on Thursday Hedgepeth was an unlucky victim of a weeklong crackdown at a Metro station in northwest Washington and policies that leave police with no middle ground between issuing a warning and arresting young food offenders."

The two systems are very different in other ways. London's underground has ancient origins. It was the first underground system in the world, with the first section opening in 1863. It was used for mass bomb shelters in World War Two. Washington's Metro opened in 1976. It lies much closer to the surface. The earlier London Underground lines were barely subsurface - but some of the later lines are very deep indeed.

For more information on the systems visit

London Underground

Washington Metro