Freight Train

A CSX freight train carrying food, paper products and hazardous materials from Philadelphia to Hamlet, N.C., derailed last night at U.S. 40 and White Marsh Boulevard, according to Baltimore County police.No injuries were reported after at least five CSX Transportation Inc. cars derailed at 11: 10 p.m., nearly two hours after leaving Philadelphia, said Adam Hollingsworth, a CSX spokesman. The cars of unidentified hazardous materials did not derail.CSX, based in Jacksonville, Fla., will investigate the accident, Hollingsworth said.

In Baltimore CityMan's condition critical after freight train hits him, severs his legsA Baltimore County man's legs were severed early yesterday when he was struck by a Conrail freight train in the 4900 block of E. Lombard St., city traffic police said.Kevin Thomas, 19, of the 9800 block of Charbank Lane in Middle River apparently was trying to cross the track about 2: 45 a.m. when he was struck by the train, which severed his legs and dragged him more than 200 yards. Workers on another Conrail freight train spotted the blood and found Thomas lying on the track, police said.

A Middle River man was killed by a freight train yesterdaynear the 700 block of North Point Road in Southeast Baltimore, police said.Michael Thomas Conner, 43, who lived in the first block of Tinker Road, was sitting on a railroad bridge near Quad Avenue about 1: 50 a.m. when a CSX freight train, headed to Philadelphia, struck him and knocked him off the span and into an unnamed creek, said Lt. John Miller of the Southeastern District.Miller said the engineer, who applied the brakes but could not stop the train in time, signaled Conner audibly and visually, but PTC the victim did not move.

The operator of a street sweeping machine was killed yesterday when his vehicle was struck by a freight train inside the loading tunnel of a Carroll County cement firm, according to state police at the Westminster Barracks.Police said Ronald L. Stewart, 41, was sweeping the inside of the tunnel at the Lehigh Cement Co. in the 100 block of S. Main St. in Union Bridge about 1: 20 p.m. when a train, backing up in the tunnel to take a load of cement, struck the sweeping machine, pushing it against the wall and crushing Stewart, of Union Bridge.

WALKING AROUND the harbor the other day, I noticed the train rails on Light Street. They reminded me of the little freight train that often interrupted our ride home from a Sunday evening visit to my grandmother's house on Poultney Street in South Baltimore.The train seemed to materialize from nowhere, and with my father's car stopped in front of the tracks, we'd watch the engine move purposefully around the harbor's edge, with a trail of much-used freight cars in tow.One open car always carried a load of shiny scraps hauled out of the old Federal Tin plant.

A freak accident disrupted train traffic in the Northeast Corridor yesterday morning when 33 automobile frames fell off two flatcars of a 100-car northbound Conrail freight train near Perryville, blocking northbound and southbound tracks for more than three hours.No one was injured, and no cars of the freight train derailed. The accident occurred 40 miles north of Baltimore about 8: 15 a.m., strewing auto frames for two miles along the tracks, said Amtrak spokesman Kirk Rostron.Amtrak brought in 20 buses to shuttle passengers north and south around the blockage to make connections in Baltimore, Wilmington and Philadelphia.

A Missouri man whose tractor-trailer rig was slammed by a freight train yesterday as he tried to turn the truck around on train tracks in Rosedale was in serious but stable condition last night at Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, police said.Police said Steven Potter, 40, of St. Peters, Mo., crawled from his demolished rig and sought help after the accident at 9: 20 a.m. in an industrial park at Todds Lane and Pulaski Highway.The operator of the CSX Transportation train, Charles Moffett, 56, of Kingsville was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center after the accident, complaining of chest pains.

25 years agoThe Centennial Celebration for Union Bridge will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 12. A parade including antique cars, Civil War Memorial marching units, beauty contest finalists and National Brewery Shire Horses and Antique Wagon will begin at the community center and march down Main Street to the Mitchell Transport property at the end of town. Free movies will be shown by the trucking company afterward, and the culmination of the evening will be the crowning of the Centennial Queen, Miss Union Bridge, by Mayor Richard L. Stultz.

A father and daughter were indicted yesterday on federal fraud charges for allegedly running schemes to swindle money from automobile and accident insurance companies, federal and state prosecutors said.Maurice Wilson, 70, and his daughter Deborah Kolodner, 40, face mail and wire fraud charges relating to a business they ran called Industrial Medical and Physical Therapy on St. Paul Place in Baltimore.U.S. Attorney Lynne A. Battaglia and Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. said in a statement that false and inflated bills were submitted to insurance companies.