Camden Station

LINCOLN PASSED through it on his way to Gettysburg. Maryland's World War troops departed from it. And for the past eight years, Baltimore has wasted it. It is Camden Station, the gingerbread-like former train depot that sits beside the city's acclaimed baseball stadium. The exterior of the 1856 structure was handsomely repointed and repainted when the ballpark opened in 1992, but aside from a passing exhibit when Baltimore hosted major-league baseball's All-Star Game in 1993, the interior has remained mothballed and cobwebbed.

Looking to a futuristic transportation alternative, the city is considering seeking up to $200 million in federal and state aid to build an elevated "people-mover" that would traverse downtown, with stops from Camden Station to Canton.Based on an engineering firm's preliminary study, computerized electrical cars would run on both sides of a rail elevated 15 to 20 feet and supported by single poles.While much of the initial spur would trace the waterfront, it would be built about a block from the harbor's edge to avoid obscuring views of the water.

NOW THAT THE downtown commercial real-estate market has bottomed out and people are talking about building again, the questions arise: What? Where? And who will decide?Will there be a master plan with a search for developers willing to fulfill it, or will entrepreneurs drive the process, demanding this and that of a passive city?Baltimore's ''renaissance'' was planned in the virtual absence of market forces. Whatever land was desired was in the urban-renewal plan and developers couldn't touch it unless they did as told.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos presented a $1 million check yesterday to the future home of the Babe Ruth Museum's exhibit at historic Camden Station, where city officials have high hopes for a major tourist attraction.Angelos called the museum's planned exhibit "a unique and unmatched tourist attraction" that will complement the historic baseball feel of Camden Yards."We have great hopes for this wonderful museum," said Angelos, standing in front of the future site of the Babe Ruth Museum's Baseball Center at Camden Station.

The building reflected in the windows of the Convention Center addition in Friday's Today section was misidentified. The building shown is Camden Station.The Sun regrets the errors.XTC Pub Date: 9/08/96

A commuter train engineer who died in Friday afternoon's fiery collision began his work that morning deep within the industrial heart of South Baltimore.It was a little after the snowy morning rush hour when CSX engineer Richard Orr turned off Fort Avenue onto Ludlow Street and drove his car into the sprawling complex where locomotives are serviced and MARC commuter trains begin their day.For Mr. Orr it was the beginning of another long but routine day on the line where he had worked for nearly a quarter of a century.

In March of 1914, a young Baltimorean who lived in the shadow of Camden Station left town for spring training in North Carolina and a chance to become a professional baseball player.Eight decades later, the train station itself is about to become a starting point for a different sort of journey that will honor the local boy who went on to gain fame as the greatest slugger in baseball history -- George Herman "Babe" Ruth."A Trip Through Baseball" is the guiding theme of a $10 million attraction that directors of the Babe Ruth Museum are planning to create inside the station by late spring 1997.

The Babe Ruth Museum is planning a major expansion inside the historic Camden Station at Oriole Park that will feature exhibits on the history of baseball in Baltimore and will be home to a hall of fame for the Babe Ruth League for young players.Michael Gibbons, executive director of the Babe Ruth Museum, said the new museum -- which has yet to be named -- will resemble the inside of a ballpark and will feature memorabilia from all of Baltimore's former ball yards, dating back to the 1870s.

THERE WAS A time in Baltimore when you could hear a train whistle almost anytime -- short and shrill during the day, long and seemingly lonely at night. In recent decades, those sounds have faded as the number of trains declined.Now AMTRAK has announced plans to cut service drastically nationwide, eliminating some routes and reducing the number of trips made on others. Few routes through Baltimore will be affected. But the cuts remind us of how much the city has lost due to the decline of railroads and the rise of the popularity of automobiles.

Baltimoreans gobble up stories about the older parts of town being crisscrossed by secret tunnels.I have heard people speak, with seeming absolute authority, of the presence of a network of passages in Seton Hill, all through West Baltimore and, if you can believe this one, under Herring Run.Some of these fanciful underground trails are said to have helped rum runners. Other stories claim these burrows were part of the Underground Railroad. If true, these ways must have been as busy as rush hour at the Fort McHenry Tunnel.