Washington Metro

Imagine a super-long train that travels both under the ground and on top of it! That's the Washington Metro, or 'Metro' for short. It's like a giant underground and above-ground playground for trains.

It has six colorful lines, like different colored ribbons, that take you to lots of places in Washington, D.C., and even to other states nearby. It's a really important way for people to get around without using cars.

The Metro wasn't always here! It first started chugging along in 1976, which is a long, long time ago. Think about how old your grandparents are – the Metro is even older than that! Since then, it has grown bigger and bigger, adding more stations and more train tracks. It keeps getting new stations, like the newest one that opened in 2023, to help even more people travel easily.

The Metro is a superhero because it helps so many people every single day! It's so popular that millions of people ride it every year. It's the second-busiest train system in the whole United States, which is super impressive. By using the Metro, people help keep the air cleaner because fewer cars are on the road. It connects neighborhoods and makes it easy to visit friends or go to fun places.

The Metro trains run on special tracks, and sometimes they go so deep underground you can't even see them! In the busy city, most of the tracks are hidden below the streets. But when the tracks go out to the suburbs, you can see them above the ground. There's even a super-duper long escalator at one station that's the longest in the whole Western Hemisphere – it's as tall as a 20-story building!