Concrete Construction

Concrete Construction is great, but I'm more into Abstract Construction.

From the Miller & Long building on the Corner of Rugby Avenue and Del Ray Avenue.  This building is being demolished for a new residential tower called "The Rugby".

More rail road remanants

 A couple of years ago I posted about some interesting un-identified track equipment along the Capital Cresent Trail that seems to have been part of a rail road car.  I was walking through the same area the other day and noticed that just on the other side of the trail down the embankment is what appears to be the rest of the railroad car.

  Here is one side of it, you can see the coupling where it would connect to the next car.  There are plants growing in the bed of the car and the whole area is completely overgrown, which is why I haven't noticed it before.  In another month or two this probably won't be visible from the trail (until next winter anyway).

 This is the back half of the above car.  Since there is no coupling and now sidewall, I surmise that there is only one railroad car that was intentionally cut in half and left behind.

this is the other part of the car, again you can see the coupling for connecting it to the rest of the train. The Capital Crescent Trail is at the top of the hill to the right.

The bed of the car was made of wood planks.  many of them have rotted away, especially in this area.

The Capital Crescent Trail runs along what was the Georgetown Branch rail road line, there are many small reminders of this that you can find if you look hard enough.  I have written about many of them.

No more paper farecards

As of this Sunday, March 6th, metro will stop accepting paper farecards for for travel within the metrorail system.  Metro has been preparing for this change for a while, and all the blue fare machines in metro stations have been dispensing smart trip cards instead of paper farecards since last December.

If you have a paper farecard (or a pile of them) you can still turn them in until June 30th and add the value to a smart trip card at any brown fare machine at a metro station (the blue ones don't have a spot to accept paper farecards).  I tried it out earlier this week and had about a 50% success rate with the cards I had.  (Admittedly though, some of my farecards are pretty old.) You can also take them to any Metro sales office.  For more information see the Metro press release.

The future may be riding on Metro, but the future isn't riding on Metro using paper farecards.