You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

kaelar ago

Hello I am familiar with DC's subway system and I am somewhat skeptical of the "hidden subway station" theory (from other posts on other boards) and very skeptical of the "Dupont Underground Tunnel" theory.

First, the Dupont Underground theory: The tunnels are not directly related to the Metro. They are the remnants of DC's streetcar system that went obsolete in 1962. But I don't believe that those tunnels get anywhere near Comet because of geography. The streetcar tunnels are specific to a few blocks around Dupont Circle. They would have been aboveground (being, you know, streetcars) most of the way to and past Comet because there's a geographical feature known as Rock Creek that lies between Dupont and Chevy Chase, which has cut a wide and deep canyon spanned by the Taft Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft_Bridge . (For reference, Comet is located well past the north (left) end of the bridge and Dupont Circle is located well past the south (right) end of the bridge. If you look at the pictures, I think you'll agree that the early streetcars did not tunnel all the way under that gorge. (And see the streetcar picture on the Taft's companion bridge for East/West traffic over Rock Creek, the Duke Ellington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington_Bridge ).

For these reasons I do not believe that the Dupont Underground streetcar tunnel gets anywhere near Comet.

Now, to the existing Metro tunnels: You can definitely note when the northbound Red Line train makes the bend to move from running under Connecticut Avenue to running under Wisconsin Avenue. It is not impossible that they extended the tunnel to keep going under Connecticut, which would align with Comet's block. But the important thing to note about any potential abandoned Metro tunnel/station in that spot - it would be very, very, very deep. The stations on either side of Comet, Tenley to the north and Van Ness to the south, require extremely long elevator or escalator rides to descend into them. I tried to find the exact depths of the stations and couldn't, but here's a site that deals with some of the history and engineering issues. https://chnm.gmu.edu/metro/eng2.html

Footnote 5 http://ghostsofdc.org/2013/10/01/ never-built-metros-bridge-rock-creek/ at this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft_Bridge has some interesting info about the Metro engineers' original plan to have the tunnel at Rock Creek be somewhat shallower and come outdoors and actually PIERCE the columns of the Taft bridge. So the subway trains would emerge from the canyon wall, travel along the Taft bridge but underneath the main roadway, and go back into the canyon wall on the other end. This would have allowed the tunnel to stay a bit more shallow.

Sadly, the National Park Service, the federales who run Rock Creek Park, said hell no. So all the stations that serve the West side of the Red Line had to burrow that much deeper to get under the Rock Creek gorge.

DC absolutely is full of tunnels, some better known than others, but I just don't think that Dupont Underground links all the way to Comet.

KnowThyself ago

This is good information to consider. The DuPont Underground definitely does not reach all the way to CPP, you can see that by looking at an old map of the system. I think the theory is that there is another tunnel system that has been connected and leads to CPP. We've already seen that CPP is involved in digging tunnels. It's good to know that the tunnels would have to go under Rock Creek to get there.