Here are the answers to WhichWMATA week 7

On Tuesday, we posted our seventh photo challenge to see how well you know Metro. I took photos of five stations. Here are the answers. How well did you do?

We got 22 guesses on this post. 3 of you got all five correct. Congratulations to Peter K, Aaron R, and Mike B!

The first image was taken at Smithsonian. This sign hangs in the National Mall entrance mezzanine, probably to help tourists. It directs passengers to the eastbound Blue/Orange platform, and includes a reference to the Green/Yellow at L’Enfant Plaza. 10 of you got this one.

The second image is of Anacostia. This is one of Metro’s unique stations. It doesn’t have a high vaulted ceiling because it’s very shallow. However, the designers kept the vaulted theme with these smaller perpendicular vaults along the platform. 17 of you knew this.

The third photo shows Friendship Heights. This station has a feature unique to the underground stations: pylon globe lights. The outdoor stations have the pylon light trees, though theirs have 4 globes. At Friendship Heights, the platform pylons were modified to carry two globes each to brighten the station. 11 of you got this one.

The fourth image was taken at Largo Town Center. This is one of three stations opened in 2004. After completing the Adopted Regional System in 2001, Metro decided to make a break in the design motifs standard throughout the system. The newer stations use less concrete and have a lighter design. This picture was taken in the spacious mezzanine beneath the tracks at Largo. 7 guessed this one correctly.

Quite a few of you guessed NoMa (New York Ave), which does have a similar design, but the key difference is the walls on either side. At NoMa, the eastern wall is floor-to-ceiling, because the Amtrak tracks are on that side. The western wall isn’t a wall at all. It’s a line of wavy grates. So the wall pictured here doesn’t match.

I expected the final image to be a hard one. It’s U Street. But 17 of you got this one right.

As I indicated in the clue on Tuesday, there was enough information to narrow this down to 3 stations. 32 stations have the waffle-style vaults. Of that subset, 20 stations have a center platform like the one pictured, but 4 of those have full-length mezzanines. Of the 16 remaining, only three have floating mezzanines at both ends of the station: U Street, Shaw, and Navy Yard. But Shaw and Navy Yard have short names that don’t require the station nameplates to be double-height as those at U Street are.

Great work in correctly deducing the answer on the last one.

Congratulations to the winners!

Next Monday, we’ll have 5 more photos for you to identify. Thanks for playing!