section_path: Infrastructure/Transportation/Rail
section_name: Rail
paragraph_text: Rail
  
  Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) operates Washington Metro, the city's rapid transit rail system, which serves Washington, D.C. and its Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs. Metro opened on March 27, 1976, and consists of six lines, 98 stations, and 129 miles (208 km) of track. Metro is the second-busiest rapid transit system in the country and fifth-busiest in North America. It operates mostly as a deep-level subway in more densely populated areas, while most of the suburban tracks are at surface level or elevated. Metro is known for its iconic brutalist -style vaulted ceilings in the interior stations. The longest single-tier escalator in the Western Hemisphere, spanning 230 feet (70 m), is located at Metro's Wheaton station in Maryland.
  
  Washington Union Station, the city's main train station, serves approximately 70,000 passengers daily and is Amtrak 's second-busiest station with 4.6 million passengers annually and the southern terminus for the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak's Northeast Regional provides service northbound transportation to Baltimore Penn Station, New York Penn Station in Manhattan, 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, South Station in Boston, and other stops. Maryland's MARC and Virginia's VRE commuter trains and the Metrorail Red Line also provide service into Union Station. As of 2023, Union Station is the ninth-busiest rail station in the nation and tenth-busiest in North America.
  
  Washington, D.C.'s streetcars, which were a prominent form of 19th and early transportation, were dismantled in the 1960s. In 2016, however, the city brought back a streetcar line, DC Streetcar, which is a single line system in Northeast Washington, D.C., along H Street and Benning Road, known as the H Street/Benning Road Line.