Rail Train

To combat crime on the Central Light Rail Line, the state Mass Transit Administration announced last night that MTA police officers will ride trains every day, and local police from Baltimore and from Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties will be stationed at most of the light rail stops.Bernard B. Foster Sr., chief of the MTA police, said officers began riding the light rail trains yesterday and that local police in the city and two counties will be stationed at stations beginning Friday."Every train will have an MTA police officer on it," Chief Foster said.

The state Board of Public Works approved a $1.5 million settlement Wednesday in the case of two teenagers who were hit and killed by a light rail train in July in Lutherville. The board - made up of Gov. Martin O'Malley, Comptroller Peter R. Franchot and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp - did not discuss the payment, which was ratified unanimously with half a dozen other items. Jarrett Connor Peterson and Kyle Patrick Wankmiller, both 17, were fatally struck July 5 by a northbound train while walking along the tracks that are normally used for southbound operations.

Maryland Transit Administration police released a photograph yesterday of two men they are seeking in connection with an armed robbery last month on a light rail train in the city. Police say the men got onto the train about 11:30 p.m. Dec. 18 at the North Avenue station and that one of them put a gun to the head of a 15-year-old passenger who was talking on a cellular phone. The boy gave the men $20 and his phone, police said. Before the robbers got off the train at the Pratt Street station, they returned the phone and $10 of the $20. Anyone who recognizes either of the men in the photo is asked to call MTA police at 410-454-7720.

One person was killed and another injured late last night when their sport utility vehicle collided with a light rail train at a crossing near the Lutherville station, Baltimore County police said. Their identities were not available. Police said the SUV was crossing Seminary Avenue at Railroad Avenue shortly before 11 p.m. when it was struck by the train. The direction of the train and vehicle were not available. Police said one occupant was taken by ambulance to Greater Baltimore Medical Center and was pronounced dead a short time later.

A city worker's attempt to install a police surveillance camera in Baltimore went awry yesterday when a truck on which he was working lurched forward into the side of a light rail train.Several passengers aboard the train, which derailed, complained of neck and back injuries. Accounts put the number of injured at between four and 20.The city employee fell or jumped from the truck's elevated bucket; a second worker was hit by the rolling vehicle.The noon accident near the Mount Royal station at Maryland Institute, College of Art forced officials to close part of the rail line for 2 1/2 hours.

How do you stop a moving train? One way is to make sure Gov. William Donald Schaefer can't be on board.A VIP preview of the new Central Light Rail Line with top city officials and members of the news media planned for Tuesday was abruptly canceled yesterday at the insistence of the governor's staff.According to sources, the governor was unhappy that Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, City Council members, selected state officials and business leaders would have a chance to ride the light rail from Centre Street to Camden Yards without him.Governor Schaefer is scheduled to attend the National Governors Association meeting in Washington that morning.

A Baltimore County man remained in serious condition today after being the first pedestrian hit on the Mass Transit Administration's Central Light Rail line.The man apparently had stood on the tracks and turned his back to an oncoming train when he was hit last night in Lutherville.Baltimore County police said the victim's family reported he had been depressed and talked of taking his own life.MTA Police Chief Larry M. Engleman said John J. Szymanski, 36, of the 8200 block of Jeffers Circle in Ridervale, a small community across the Beltway and south of Lutherville, stepped out of a wooded area on the east side of the rail line south of Seminary Avenue about 9:30 p.m. The man appeared to make no effort to get out of the northbound train's path before it struck and threw him to the side of the tracks, Chief Engleman said.

CUMBERLAND -- A special train will take Oriole fans from Cumberland to the Camden Yards stadium four times this summer, a happy Gov. William Donald Schaefer announced yesterday.Mr. Schaefer, a railroad buff and Oriole fan himself, announced the special arrangement outside the Cumberland station of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, which runs from Cumberland Frostburg.A Maryland Rail Commuter train will haul up to 500 passengers to Oriole Park at Camden Yards June 28, July 26, Aug. 23 and Sept.

There's an image that lingers about many of Baltimore's schoolchildren. State test scores seem to bolster it. Media images contribute to it. They're "inner-city" kids - low-income, low-educated, little-loved. But thanks to a project that pairs two public schools with the Maryland Transit Administration, city kids tell a different story through the most urban of mediums: the city bus. Words on Wheels, a program that places the original poetry of sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders inside MTA buses and light rail cars, helps answer the question Jaleiro Elsey poses in the poem "Who Am I?"

A 22-year-old man remained in a coma yesterday after being struck by a Maryland Rail Commuter service train Friday night in Elkridge, Howard County police said.The man, whose name withheld until relatives were notified, was walking with an unidentified 21-year-old woman on the tracks near Levering Avenue and Lawyers Hill Road about 9: 15 p.m. when he was hit by the Washington-bound train.Police said the couple apparently stepped off the tracks, onto a narrow strip on the edge of a 60-foot drop, after the engineer sounded a warning horn.