New Station

Volunteers often face more peril exiting the 65-year-old station here than they do in firefighting.When the siren blares, they grab their gear. Before racing to an emergency, they frequently must extricate an engine blocked in by another piece of equipment and grapple with narrow doors in the aging building.With construction of a new station and its six drive-through baysset to begin next week, firefighters can soon put those perils behind them.The department will break ground at 2 p.m. Sunday for a $1.6 million facility on North Main Street.

A new fire station officially opened Thursday at the Warfield Air National Guard Base in Middle River that will serve the military installation and nearby communities in eastern Baltimore County. The new station sits on a base that is home to the 1,500 members of the Guard's 175th Wing, but firefighters at the $7 million facility were battling a blaze at a home in Wilson Point most of Wednesday night and recently assisted county crews with an overturned tanker truck just outside its Eastern Avenue gate.

Baltimore County police officers working at the new, $6.8 million Woodlawn police station aren't sure why a huge stone wall cuts through the building, or why a black steel gate is suspended in that wall.Dramatic architectural flourishes? The police say they don't much care.That's because, compared with the 3,000-square-foot, 36-year-old station being replaced in the western county, the new 26,000-square-foot place is a police officer's dream come true.Desk officer Curtis G. Morsberger this week presided over the lobby of the new station, complete with a skylight and black slate tiles, at Woodlawn Drive and Windsor Mill Road.

The doors of Baltimore's new Union Station, now Pennsylvania Station, swung open a century ago this week to welcome enthusiastic crowds of Baltimoreans, travelers and gawkers alike. Its completion was considered a great civic triumph after years of agitation from Baltimoreans, both prominent and humble, and newspapers calling for a new station that was worthy of the city. The present station, the third on the site, was constructed of granite, terra cotta and built on a structural steel frame.

Santa Claus was very good to the Sykesville Police Department two weeks ago, delivering a new station right on time -- Christmas Eve.Police Chief Wallace Mitchell, Administrative Assistant Debbie Onheiser and four police officers spent last week moving into their new quarters behind the Town House."

Sitting in her empty office off the WJZ newsroom shortly before going to the set for her last broadcast after more than a quarter of a century on Baltimore TV, Sally Thorner said she felt focused and strong. "I'm actually good today," the 54-year-old said. "There was a certain point where I was drained by all of this, but not now - now that it's actually here. I'm not promising I won't break up tonight, but I'm really feeling strong. And I have to be strong and focused on air. I really don't want to go out sloppy.

Members of the Jarrettsville Volunteer Fire Company have a way for your name to go down in histoty.As part of the company's effort to raise money to build a new fire station - dubbed the "Buy a Brick Campaign." contributors' names will be inscribed in the walkway of the new station.Proceeds from the campaign will go toward paying off the remaining cost of the new $1.4 million fire station.The company plans to sell its 29-year-old station for $600,000, which also will go toward the new firehouse, said Thurman Ellis, the company's campaign chairman.

Baltimore County is planning to lease a 6-acre parcel to the Owings Mills Volunteer Fire Department for $1 a year for the group's new station house.The land is on Owings Mills Boulevard north of Reisterstown Road.The fire company has been looking for new quarters since 1986, when the Northwest Expressway opened and began spilling traffic onto Reisterstown Road, 8 feet from the volunteers' station house, making access difficult.If the County Council approves the agreement Tuesday, the fire company will sell its current site to the adjacent Garrison Forest shopping center for $1.2 million, add $300,000 of its own money and borrow $400,000 from the county Volunteer Fire Association to pay for construction of the station house.

A dream will come true soon when the 70 members of the Mount Airy Volunteer Fire Co. step into the 21st century and occupy their new $1.6 million fire station."

The Greyhound bus company resumed running shuttles yesterday from its recently closed downtown Baltimore station to a temporary location two miles away after the abrupt closing left some travelers confused. Through tomorrow, the free shuttles will take passengers from the closed station in the 200 block of W. Fayette St. to a temporary terminal at 2110 Haines St., said Lynn Brown, spokeswoman for the Dallas-based bus company. The shuttles had also run for the first 48 hours after the station's closing Wednesday.

Last Monday, one of the most famous sets of call letters in the history of Baltimore radio was resurrected on local airwaves. And so far, listeners are split about the new HFS. Broadcasting on 97.5-FM, the newest incarnation is patterned closely after the influential alternative rock station once found at 99.1 on the dial — until its abrupt switch to Latin pop station El Zol in 2005. "The music made popular by HFS has lived on long after the station went off the air," CBS Radio senior vice president Bob Philips said last week when announcing the new station, noting that the brand had been kept alive as a streaming Internet station over the past six years.

How do you solve a problem like Baltimore's new Irish pubs? The last two I've reviewed — Delia Foley's and Finnegan's Wake — have disappointed. They have all the bells and whistles of a Chuck E. Cheese's: Wings! Arcade games! Delirious young people running around! And just as much originality. They are rudderless, exhibiting none of the rich character and history their neighborhoods are known for. Liam Flynn's Ale House has found a way to do the Irish pub right. This new bar from the former manager of the Pint-Size Pub is everything these other bars are not: original, personable, chill and, most notably, respectful of its city's long and rich nightlife history.

Work is set to begin next month on two new fire stations at opposite ends of Howard County. The largest facility will replace a long-outmoded 1937 building owned by the Savage Volunteer Fire Company, while Glenwood, in the western county, will get a smaller station near the county's regional park, library and community center. In about two years, the county hopes to add a third new facility along U.S. Route 1 north of Route 175. "We took a look at the entire county" using GPS coordinates to find where new stations were needed to keep response times to six minutes or less and also reduce the time required for backup units to arrive, said Fire Chief William Goddard.

Two high-priority Maryland projects, including the replacement of a deteriorating tunnel that carries Amtrak trains through Baltimore, will receive $70 million in funding as part of $8 billion in rail investments announced Thursday by the Obama administration. The money, part of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program, is intended to foster development of high-speed rail in the United States, which for decades has lagged behind European and Asian nations. The biggest beneficiaries of the distribution of funds were California and Florida, where Obama made appearances to promote his signature transportation initiative.

Sitting in her empty office off the WJZ newsroom shortly before going to the set for her last broadcast after more than a quarter of a century on Baltimore TV, Sally Thorner said she felt focused and strong. "I'm actually good today," the 54-year-old said. "There was a certain point where I was drained by all of this, but not now - now that it's actually here. I'm not promising I won't break up tonight, but I'm really feeling strong. And I have to be strong and focused on air. I really don't want to go out sloppy.

Baltimore County, state and military officials gathered at the Warfield Air National Guard Base at Martin State Airport in Middle River on Wednesday to break ground for a much-needed fire station. The $8 million, 21,000-square-foot building, scheduled for completion in about 15 months, will include six equipment bays, training rooms, offices and storage facilities. "You deserve all the resources you need to train for whatever your call of duty," said U.S. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger.

The doors of Baltimore's new Union Station, now Pennsylvania Station, swung open a century ago this week to welcome enthusiastic crowds of Baltimoreans, travelers and gawkers alike. Its completion was considered a great civic triumph after years of agitation from Baltimoreans, both prominent and humble, and newspapers calling for a new station that was worthy of the city. The present station, the third on the site, was constructed of granite, terra cotta and built on a structural steel frame.

The purchase is final - the license transferred - the FCC happy. Now, let's talk catchy call letters. WYPR-FM's new station in Frederick broadcast new call letters yesterday, signaling the official transfer of the former religious station WJTM to the Baltimore public radio station known as Your Public Radio. "The closest name we could come up with was `Your Public Radio in Frederick,'" said Anthony Brandon, WYPR president. The new station is now known as WYPF. Both WYPR and WYPF can be found at 88.1 FM. Since the purchase agreement in February, WYPR has been simulcasting its programming on the Frederick station in anticipation of the Federal Communication Commission's granting the license transfer, which it did last week.

The Darlington Volunteer Fire Co. plans to build a new substation in Dublin to replace a 20-year-old facility where expansion is not physically possible. The company, which has about 100 active volunteers on its rolls, serves northern Harford County along the U.S. 1 corridor, as well as Cecil County and southern Pennsylvania. Members responded to more than 400 fires last year and made at least twice that number of emergency calls, its officials said. "We cover one of the largest areas in the county as far as geography goes," said Donald Thomas, the company's president and a member since 1971.