Here are the answers to whichWMATA week 38

On Tuesday, we featured the thirty-eighth issue of our “whichWMATA” series. This week, all five photos were guest submissions from reader Peter K.

This week we got 28 guesses. Four people got all five correct. Great work, JamesDCane, MZEBE, Mr. Johnson, and FN!

The first image shows the view up out of the north entrance to Dupont Circle station. This is yet another view of the distinctive circular “bowl” that forms the Q Street entrance, which we also featured in Week 22 and Week 33. This entrance also happens to be one of only a handful within the system that has uncovered escalators, which won’t be the case for long if WMATA has its way.

Almost all of you —26— got this one right. Great work.

The second image shows the view out of Ballston station. The roof over the street escalators at Ballston is of a style distinct from Metro’s standard escalator canopies. If you didn’t recognize that, the building visible through the roof was also a hint— it is tall enough that it would violate the federal Height of Buildings Act if it were in DC, so we must be at one of the 15 underground stations in Virginia or Maryland.

Twenty-five of you knew this one.

Next up on our tour of views along Metro escalators is Pentagon station. This is the view up the south escalators, on the way to the station’s massive bus transfer area. The big hint here is the roof over the escalators, which is of the same distinctive style as the rest of the modern Pentagon bus hub that was constructed in 2001.

Eagle-eyed respondents might have also noticed that the escalators themselves are a clue — the continuous strip of LEDs along the treads are common to the escalators replaced during the Metro Forward rebuilding effort (like the ones at Foggy Bottom, as we saw in week 35). WMATA replaced these three escalators in 2013.

This was the most difficult one this week. Only five of you guessed Pentagon.

The fourth image shows the entrance to Cheverly station. This entrance is unique within the Metrorail system because at Cheverly passengers must cross up and over the old Pennsylvania Railroad freight line to access the station from the parking lot.

You can see the catenary poles left over from the days when the Pennsy ran electric freight trains, which narrows this down to one of the stations between Minnesota Avenue and New Carrollton. All other stations adjacent to railroads are accessed from below with the exception of Franconia-Springfield, but at Franconia the overpass connects to a parking garage and is only served by elevators.

Thirteen of you correctly guessed Cheverly.

Last up is a view down the escalators at the south entrance to Anacostia Station. There are a number of clues here, all of which point to this being one of the system’s six “unique” stations that don’t fit into one of the 11 categories of Metro station design.

There were several clues that could have helped you narrow this down. The first is that the walls are vertical, which is unique to Anacostia and L’Enfant Plaza among the underground stations. Additionally, there are three side-by-side escalators which is a very rare setup for platform escalators. In this case, they’re also off-center to make room for an elevator. Anacostia is unique in this regard.

If you look closely, you can also spot railings running along the edge of the platform. They exist because the platform here is more than 600 feet long to match the location of the two entrances. Only King Street and Anacostia have railings like this. Finally, the concrete structure above the escalators is the corner of the mezzanine structure, which is rotated 45 degrees relative to the platform.

Twelve of you got this one.

Thanks to everyone for playing! Great work. Stay tuned. We’ll have five more images for you next Tuesday.

I’d also like to give a special thanks to Peter K for submitting photos. If you think you have what it takes, email your photos to whichwmata@ggwash.org.