Cargo

WASHINGTON - Tankers filled with deadly chemicals are likely to continue to roll through Baltimore and other major cities despite new federal rules initially aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophic accidents or terrorist threats by sending much of the cargo through less-populated areas. Beginning next month, railroads must analyze alternative routes for shipping chlorine and other hazardous materials, and pick the path they find to be the safest and most secure, as well as practical and "commercially viable."

A cargo service that brought nearly 30,000 containers annually into Seagirt Marine Terminal is quitting the port of Baltimore after only two years. French-owned CMA-CGM and China Shipping, two of the largest global shipping lines, will halt their joint weekly service from Europe to Baltimore on May 8, when it makes its final call here, according to CMA-CGM's North American headquarters in Norfolk. It's the latest blow to the port administration's efforts to bolster container traffic in Baltimore, which for years has lost market share to East Coast ports that are closer to the ocean rather than up Chesapeake Bay. The port also lacks the ability to efficiently double-stack containers on trains, which is fast becoming the industry standard.

Propelled by a weakening dollar, a surge of exports - especially autos - drove the value of cargo moving through the port of Baltimore last year to a record $41.9 billion, though tonnage increased less than 1 percent, the Maryland Port Administration said yesterday. The gain of more than 13 percent overall was a $5 billion increase over 2006, according to the annual report released by the MPA.

Cargo handled at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport -- and by U.S. airlines nationwide -- has slipped to its lowest level in at least four years, yet another tangible result of an ailing economy and skyrocketing fuel costs. The decrease is part of a general falloff in domestic cargo volume, whether by air, rail or truck, as consumers reduce spending and businesses ship fewer finished goods and buy less equipment and materials. Because cargo is a key barometer of economic health, a downturn could influence the Federal Reserve as it ponders whether to further cut interest rates to spur growth at a time when inflation pressures are rising.

CSX Transportation, which operates trains that carry hazardous freight through the heart of Baltimore, has assured the city's members of Congress that the company is talking with Maryland officials about "immediately" including the state in a pilot project that gives security officials access to information about dangerous cargo. In a letter to five Maryland legislators, CSX Corp. Chief Executive Officer Michael J. Ward also promises to give Baltimore officials access to its network operations during future Ravens games this season at M&T Bank Stadium, which borders the CSX tracks where 12 railcars derailed Nov. 24. The incident did not result in a leak or fire, but it renewed concerns raised by a 2001 derailment and subsequent conflagration in the nearby Howard Street Tunnel about the safety of transporting hazardous chemicals through downtown Baltimore.

For about 17 hours yesterday, truck driver Bob Johnson and two co-workers sat on a jersey barrier just north of the city limits on Interstate 95 and entertained themselves by watching traffic go by. A couple of trucks blew out tires. An accident on the northbound side tied up traffic. And every so often, a car would get a little too close to the shoulder where the crew stood and knock over the cones Johnson had set up to alert travelers of their parked vehicles. "That was pretty much the highlight of the day," he said.

BAGHDAD -- Aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr appeared yesterday to place conditions on his call for a six-month halt to militia operations, but the Iraqi capital was noticeably calm a day after the announced cease-fire. Al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia fought two bloody battles with U.S. forces in 2004, said Wednesday that he was ordering a halt to hostile actions for six months. But in Sadr City, Abu Firas Muteri, an aide to the anti-American cleric, said: "The halt can be revoked at any time if there is a need for that."

WASHINGTON -- British Airways PLC and Korean Air Lines Co. Ltd. were each fined $300 million in a federal District Court yesterday after admitting they reached secret agreements with competitors in setting fuel surcharges. Both companies cooperated with investigators and escaped penalties that could have been two to three times higher, said U.S. District Judge John D. Bates. Yesterday's guilty pleas, announced Aug. 1, end the first criminal prosecutions arising from a multinational antitrust investigation of the air transportation industry.

Joseph Moye Eddins Sr., an Army Air Forces pilot who flew cargo missions over the Himalayas after World War II and later became a vice president of the Maryland Casualty Co., died Friday of heart failure at the Riderwood Erickson Retirement Community in Silver Spring. The former Towson resident was 83. Mr. Eddins was born and raised in Troy, Ala., and during his senior year of high school passed the exams for the Army Air Forces cadet-training program. After graduating from high school in 1943, he reported to Dos Palos, Calif.

Dorothy Ella Sherer, an avid dancer and retired office manager of a cargo inspection business, died of cancer July 25 at Oak Crest Village in Parkville. The former Hamilton resident was 89. Born Dorothy Ella Blatt in Baltimore and raised on Ridgely Street in Pigtown, she was a 1936 graduate of Southern High School, where she assisted the principal with secretarial work. Friends said that Mrs. Sherer excelled as a typist and office worker. She joined the National Cargo Bureau in downtown Baltimore and became its office manager before retiring many years ago. Throughout her life, she enjoyed dancing, and she met her future husband, Neil Robbins Sherer, a Baltimore City inventory manager, at a dance at Gwynn Oak Park.