Rail Cars

A Mass Transit Administration light rail train collided with a car Wednesday morning near Howard and Lombard streets, leaving three people with minor injuries and tying up traffic for 30 minutes.It was the second time in two months that a light rail train had collided with a vehicle at the downtown intersection, MTA police said. Both accidents were caused by driver error, police said.In Wednesday's accident, police said that at 9: 55 a.m., the driver of a 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera -- a northeastern Baltimore County man -- turned left in front of the train while trying to enter the Holiday Inn parking lot.The man was treated at the University of Maryland Medical Center for a shoulder injury and released, according to Anthony Brown, an MTA spokesman.

In a factory off York Road where workers once made trailers used to load nuclear bombs into the bellies of B-52 bombers, employees of AAI Corp. are now welding metal into the shape of rail cars that will eventually carry passengers from Glen Burnie to Hunt Valley.The defense contractor's new effort at turning swords into plowshares will result in the production of the first light rail car made in the United States in more than a decade.This week the company completed the initial rail car shell as part of a $53.7 million order from the Maryland Department of Transportation for 36 rail cars.

Despite an urgent request from officials investigating the fatal train crash last winter in Silver Spring, the Federal Railroad Administration has declined to impose several immediate changes on rail cars that would make escape easier in an emergency.Instead, most of the recommended improvements to emergency exits and signs will be addressed in rules the agency will propose this fall, FRA Administrator Jolene M. Molitoris wrote in a letter released yesterday.She did agree to one emergency measure recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board on March 12.On some passenger trains, such as the one involved in the Silver Spring crash, the levers to open doors in an emergency are inside a cabinet that must be opened with a coin or pen. The Federal Railroad Administration said those levers will be changed immediately to make them easier to access.

Buyers carted away the EnterTRAINment Line piece by piece yesterday, as everything from furniture to dinnerware and crock pots to rail cars became the bargain-rate spoils of a court-ordered auction of the bankrupt company's assets.The Union Bridge excursion line closed in May, leaving more than 100 creditors and owing more than $300,000 in amusement taxes and interest dating to 1989.Despite yesterday's auction, some feel a new passenger entertainment train service could rise from the EnterTRAINment Line's ashes in Carroll County.

Buyers carted away the EnterTRAINment Line piece by piece yesterday, as everything from furniture to dinnerware and crock pots to rail cars became the bargain-rate spoils of a court-ordered auction of the bankrupt company's assets.The Union Bridge excursion line closed in May, leaving more than 100 creditors and owing more than $300,000 in amusement taxes and interest dating to 1989.Despite yesterday's auction, some feel a new passenger entertainment train service could rise from the EnterTRAINment Line's ashes in Carroll County.

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.

Anxious to avoid a repeat of last winter's disastrous effects on light rail, the Mass Transit Administration has embarked on a $1 million effort to keep ice from shutting down the line.Sleet and freezing rain closed portions of the 22.5-mile-long Central Light Rail Line on at least four occasions in January and February -- usually for days at a time. Ice that formed on the overhead power lines often prevented the collectors, or "pantographs," on each car from making contact and drawing power.

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.

The end of the line has finally arrived for MARC's fleet of Budd commuter rail passenger cars, a fixture at morning and evening rush hours at Camden Station for the past 40 years. The aged rail equipment is to be retired and replaced in a matter of days.The silvery, diesel-motored rail cars were made by the E.G. Budd Co. in Pennsylvania and purchased by many U.S. and Canadian railroads in the 1950s. Strong on reliability, performance and speed, the cars have long outlived their corporate parent.

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.