Like every large American city, Washington, DC used to have an extensive trolley system. There was 1 short subway segment, under Connecticut Avenue, with a station beneath Dupont Circle. The Dupont subway operated from 1949 until 1962. I got a tour of it yesterday, so here are the pictures.
The contemporary Dupont Circle Metro station is a totally different facility, deeper underground.
All the entrances to the Dupont subway remain on the sidewalk. They look much more like New York subway entrances than modern DC Metro ones. They're all boarded up. One of them has a locked gate, which is how we were let in:
Descending down the stairs:
The stairs lead straight onto what used to be the trolley platform. Trolleys curved around the circle, directly under the roundabout surface streets.
This was the entrance we used:
There are several other entrances:
The Mass Ave entrance marks the end of the station and the beginning of the tunnels. These extend about a block and a half both north and south of the circle, under Connecticut Avenue.
When the subway was operating, pedestrians wouldn't have walked through these tunnels. But we did.
Looking back on the platform area:
At the end of the tunnels the two tracks come together. Prior to 1962 they would have then moved above ground and run in the street median, but now they just end at a capped off wall.
It's much the same on the other end:
Mid way through the tunnel there's a maintenance door that leads directly onto Connecticut Avenue (there's a small ledge for pedestrians but not a crosswalk). We probably freaked out some drivers by stepping out.
The old tracks are still in place. There are three because DC's old trolleys used a unique underground electric conduit for power instead of overhead wires. The power line ran down the middle of the tracks. The same system cannot be used today because it would be too much of an insurance liability; people on the street might stick their fingers into the conduit and electrocute themselves.
The tracks are not in usable condition. In some places they're still decent, and in others all that's left is an iron-colored dust. A lot of them look like this:
The walls and support beams are in none too great shape either.
The tour organizers gave us a brief slideshow while we were down there. Here's a map of the tunnels:
They want to repurpose the space as an art gallery, but don't have any money.
Investors are difficult to come by because in the 1990s there was an effort to open up the space as a food court, and it failed miserably. Here's what the old food court space looks like now:
photo from conoperative
Here's the old girl in use:
photo from conoperative
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