Rail Cars

BARBARA SCHNELL of Hampstead and Suzanne Mancha of Manchester will be featured in the railway car artist's studio, part of the national Artrain museum.The Artrain will be open at the Maryland Midland Railway tracks in Taneytown from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow through Sunday. The studio will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.Schnell, a children's art educator, will paint a pastel portrait of Taneytown Mayor Henry C. Heine tomorrow morning, and return for another portrait Friday.

William Agee, best known for a hostile takeover attempt of Martin Marietta Corp. in the 1980s that backfired and gave rise to the notorious "Pac-Man defense," could well go down in history as the textbook example of a brainy chief executive officer with grand visions who never managed to turn them into reality.The 57-year-old executive's latest stumble -- an ill-fated foray into rail car manufacturing at Morrison Knudsen Corp. -- has buried the old-line construction and engineering company under a mountain of debt and given rise to several shareholder lawsuits.

A derailed Southern Pacific tanker car spilled as much as 19,000 gallons of a poisonous weedkiller into the Sacramento River in Northern California, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents, killing tens of thousands of fish and devastating the ecosystem along a 40-mile stretch of the stream, officials said yesterday.The spill in southern Siskiyou County on Sunday night also forced the temporary closure of a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 5 and briefly engulfed the small city of Dunsmuir in a noxious cloud of gas.At least two dozen people sought treatment at local hospitals, mostly for headaches, dizziness, nausea and eye irritation.

A tip from a city police informant led to the arrest yesterday of six boys accused of intimidating passengers aboard a light rail car three weeks ago, forcing it to stop and throwing rocks at its windows from outside the train.No one was injured in the March 4 incident, but the confrontation prompted police to increase security on the 2-year-old trolley line. It also highlighted the Mass Transit Administration's growing problems with juvenile thuggery on its buses and rail vehicles."I see this as a strong message that we're providing for the safety and welfare of our customers, and we intend to respond to incidents like this immediately," said Bernard B. Foster Sr., the MTA's police chief.

Baltimore's first $1.6 million light-rail car arrived last week from its assembly plant in New York state with about 550 defects, state Department of Transportation officials said yesterday.But O. James Lighthizer, secretary of transportation, said most of the defects -- including water leaks and squeaky doors -- appear to be minor and can probably be fixed by the manufacturer without shipping the 106,000-pound, custom-built vehicle back to New York.State officials said a second car still at the plant also failed a leak test, though they added they believed the problem had been fixed.

It's a good thing the folks at the Mass Transit Administration don't take their cues from their boss, Gov. William Donald Schaefer.MTA officials who oversee the Central Light Rail Line that runs between Timonium and Glen Burnie were alarmed at the increase in crime statistics along the line: 71 incidents of assaults, robberies and car thefts on or near the light rail system from June to December last year. On top of that was a sharp rise in shoplifting at some stores near the line. The MTA, to its credit, admitted that it underestimated the vulnerability of the light rail system it unveiled two years ago and now is taking corrective measures.

A light-rail train and a vehicle collided at the intersection of Howard and Lexington streets in Baltimore on Tuesday, a Maryland Transit Administration spokesman said. A car turned into the path of a train around 3:56 p.m., said MTA spokesman Terry Owens. He said one light rail rider claimed injury but refused treatment when medics arrived. The driver of the vehicle was not injured, he said. Service was delayed for about a half-hour until the medic arrived, Owens said. The driver of the vehicle is believed to be at fault, he said, but added that the crash was still under investigation.

Sixteen students from at least three Baltimore schools were arrested yesterday for breaking into railroad cars and stealing cases of wine and wine coolers, according to police.Officer Robert L. Jenkins of the Southern Police District said the youths -- 12 to 16 years old -- broke into the boxcars before school and hid most of the cases of wine and wine coolers.Twenty-eight cases have been recovered so far. Railroad police are conducting an inventory to see how many cases were taken from the railroad cars.

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- In their zeal to "cleanse" northern Bosnia of its Muslims and Croats, Serbs who seized control of the region have deported thousands of unarmed civilians in sealed freight trains in the past month.Hundreds of women, children and old people have been packed into each freight car for sweltering journeys into central Bosnia lasting three or more days, according to refugees who survived the ordeal."There was no food, no water and no fresh air," said Began Fazlip.

Despite two brushes with the police, Baltimore's first light-rail car arrived yesterday.The $1.6 million car left its Elmira, N.Y., assembly plant about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday on an extra-long trailer and was almost immediately stopped for a check by local police. It later got stuck for two hours trying to make a turn, and then spent the night under the guard of New York state troopers because the permit to transport it had expired, said John von Briesen, the Mass Transit Administration's light-rail project manager.