Camden Line

The Maryland Transit Administration will introduce the first of its 26 new diesel locomotives for its MARC commuter train service Wednesday at a Camden Station news conference with Gov. Martin O'Malley. The new $100 million fleet is expected to improve the capacity and reliability of service on the MARC lines, which have been hampered in recent years by frequent equipment breakdowns. Three of the new locomotives are in Maryland and are undergoing the final stages of testing, said MTA spokeswoman Jawauna Greene.

March 31 was a lousy day to observe the travails of life aboard a MARC train. I took two round-trips - one on the Penn Line and one on the Camden Line - and the rides couldn't have gone more smoothly. Where was the dysfunctional MARC I'd been hearing so much about? I was aboard that day as an exercise in making amends. After a recent column implied that MARC riders were a wee bit more persnickety than the typical transit rider, my in-box was flooded with indignant e-mail. One of my more spirited e-mail discussions evolved from ire to mutual respect to an invitation to meet with a group of MARC commuters over a beer.

Orioles fans who depended on Maryland Transit Administration charter buses to get home from games now face the same deprivation that afflicted Ravens rooters last year. Because of a federal ruling, public transit agencies can no longer provide specialized services geared to sporting events. That includes the buses to Savage, Greenbelt and Washington that the MTA used to offer after games. With the baseball season under way, it has been left to the MTA to break the bad news to fans that they may have to leave before the last out is recorded to make the last transit connection to Washington.

In a setback to its ambitious effort to expand the MARC commuter train service, the Maryland Transit Administration has dropped plans to add weekend service to its Penn Line or midday runs to its Camden Line this summer. MTA Administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld said last week that the agency has so far been unable to reach agreements with Amtrak or CSX, which own the two lines, on opening up slots in their schedules for the added service. In September, Wiedefeld unveiled a sweeping 28-year plan to triple capacity on MARC, a system whose growing popularity has led to severe crowding.

The Maryland Transit Administration is planning a sweeping expansion of its popular but crowded MARC commuter train service, including weekend runs and additional weekday trains by next year and a tripling of the system's capacity by 2035. The detailed blueprint, outlined in a briefing by MTA Administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld, envisions a system that eventually would stretch from Virginia to Delaware and have the capacity to carry more than 100,000 riders a day. The plan, the cost of which would amount to billions of dollars over the next 28 years, would add tracks in areas that are bottlenecks and would increase the frequency of train arrivals.

Jim Akers has seen it all on the MARC line this summer: Crowded rail cars. Broken-down locomotives. Trains slowed to a crawl. E-mail alerts that arrive too late to be useful. "It's been a rough time," said the Ellicott City resident, who commutes to Washington on MARC's Camden line. Maryland transportation officials concede that MARC performance has suffered in recent weeks, mostly because of heat-related problems. In July, for instance, 82 percent of trains ran on time -- well below the state's 92 percent goal.

The management of the state's MARC commuter train service has apologized to its Penn Line passengers for a series of "major service disruptions" as a result of malfunctioning locomotives. In an e-mail to riders, MARC said that three times over the past two weeks, the locomotive on the 5:37 p.m. train from Washington has broken down - resulting in crowding and delays on later trains. The failures involved high-horsepower electric locomotives MARC bought as an add-on to a purchase of 15 identical locomotives by Amtrak.

Four CSX train cars carrying new automobiles derailed yesterday afternoon in Jessup, blocking passengers on the Camden MARC train commuter line during rush hour, a railroad spokeswoman said. Buses picked up passengers at the Dorsey or Savage Maryland Rail Commuter stations and drove them to their destinations north or south of Jessup, said a spokesman for the Maryland Transit Administration. Misty Skipper of CSX said that an engine was pulling 67 cars into the CSX Jessup Yard when the derailment occurred about 3 p.m. Two of the derailed cars went over an embankment.

Service was interrupted yesterday on the MARC Camden Line between Baltimore's Oriole Park and Greenbelt after a person was struck by a freight train, transit officials said. Maryland Rail Commuter officials had no information about the victim, who was struck by a CSX Corp. train about 2:30 p.m. on the tracks between the Laurel and Muirkirk stations in Prince George's County, said MARC spokesman Richard Scher. Service resumed about 4:30 p.m. between Union Station and Greenbelt. Shuttle buses carried passengers from Greenbelt to stops farther north, he said.

MARC train service was suspended on the Camden line between Baltimore and Washington after a person was struck by a CSX Corp. freight train in Laurel, a MARC official said. Service was halted in both directions about 2:30 p.m., said Cheron Wicker, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Transit Administration in Baltimore. The MARC train travels between Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Union Station, she said. No information was available on the victim, she said. MTA officials could not estimate when service would be restored, Wicker said.