The Blue Line will be shut down beginning this week as maintenance teams work to investigate what is inside the pipes running along our subway tunnels. The closure will last until next week and service should resume on Monday morning. This investigation began while our archival team discovered these pipes were not in many of the historical photos of the stations. Further inquiries revealed that none of the staff of Metro knew when the pipes were installed or what their function is. A maintenance supervisor told Metro “There just seem to be far too many pipes for lighting, or signaling”. There are also pipes that seem to go no-where or end in a nondescript box. If what is in the pipes is discovered to be necessary for the functioning of the system, the blue line will need to be closed for another week or more to restore the pipes to the way they are now.