Railroads

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Charles T. Mahan Jr., who spent 75 years painstakingly documenting the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad — better known as the Ma & Pa — that zig-zagged across Maryland from Baltimore to York, Pa., died Friday of kidney failure at Oak Crest Village. He was 88. "Every fan of the Ma & Pa will be eternally indebted to Charlie. He was a treasure," said Rudy Fischer, archivist of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society. "He documented its rolling stock, narrow- and later standard-gauge days.

The revival of railroads as a growth industry has barreled ahead during the past year on a newfound ability to raise prices. That has attracted the attention of many influential investors, including Warren E. Buffett, leading to a revival in several railroad stocks. It also represents a round trip in American history. Railroads had ushered in the modern stock era, with nine railroad stocks on an 11-stock Dow Jones index launched in 1884. The premier growth industry of that time, railroads were the only shares traded in large volume on the New York Stock Exchange.

President Barack Obama's designation Monday of a new national monument to Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery on a Dorchester County plantation in 1849, then helped guide scores of other slaves to freedom in the North during the decade before the Civil War, honors a small and unprepossessing African-American woman who played an outsized role in American history. Mr. Obama's proclamation sets aside the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument near the city of Cambridge on Maryland's Eastern Shore as a historical preservation site to be administered by the National Park Service.

New York--The chief executives of the three major railroads rolling through Baltimore dropped by New York during the past two weeks and gave similar reports on current conditions: The economy is still derailed.Railroads are in a good position to monitor business conditions since they tend to carry the bulk commodities that feed the factories that ultimately feed society. Their role at the beginning of the economic food chain is why some of the oldest theories of stock market timing are premised on movement in the Dow Jones transportation index (once entirely comprised of rail stocks)

A new CSX Corp. radio ad declares that even the most fuel-efficient hybrid car can't compete with a train, which "can move a ton of freight 423 miles on a single gallon of fuel." "Too bad we can't all drive a train," the announcer says before urging listeners to visit CSX's Web site to learn about the Jacksonville, Fla., company's "commitment to protecting the environment." Railroad companies, long a target of environmentalists who blame them for everything from deforestation to toxic spills, are marketing themselves as the ultimate eco-friendly, low-fuel-consuming industry.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court gave the federal government yesterday a major new mechanism for helping merged railroads cut their costs: the power to set aside workers' job-protection clauses in existing labor contracts.Ruling in cases involving two rail mergers -- one of them the linking of the Chessie System and the Seaboard Coast Line into CSX Transportation Inc. -- the court declared that the Interstate Commerce Commission may override railway union contracts if that is necessary to assure that an ICC-approved merger will succeed.

Moving freight and passengers by rail is by far the cheapest and most efficient means possible and is friendlier to Earth's environment than any alternative form of transportation. Yet highways are not going to disappear and Americans are not going to forsake their cars and shippers their trucks for transport by rail.This is the focus of Stephen B. Goddard's "Getting There: The Epic Struggle Between Road and Rail in the American Century" (Basic Books, 351 pages. $28).What America needs is a balanced transportation system that employs the latest technology available.

CSX and Norfolk Southern Corp. are close to a deal that would end their four-month high-stakes battle and split Conrail's 11,000 miles of tracks.The latest arrangement calls for CSX to pay another $1 billion, or $10.5 billion total in cash, for Conrail, matching Norfolk Southern's hostile bid. Sources said that CSX, after acquiring Conrail, would sell about half of Conrail's lines in the Northeast to Norfolk Southern.Top executives of the three railroads have been meeting secretly for nearly six weeks to resolve the bidding.

If they're lucky, most people have time to seriously immerse themselves in one or two interests during their lifetime, but that wasn't the case with Randolph Wakefield Chalfant, who died last week at 85. Chalfant - a retired Baltimore architect called Randy - had voluminous interests that he vigorously pursued despite ill health and failing eyesight until the end of his life. I knew his interest in architecture came from his father, a Pittsburgh architect. But I wondered how he had become fascinated with railroading, steam shipping, miniature theaters, marine engines, yachts and Christmas gardens.

Herbert Christian Forrester Jr., a retired railroad vice president, died of coronary artery disease Thursday at Mays Chapel Ridge Assisted Living. The former Cockeysville resident was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised in Windsor Hills, he was the son of attorney Herbert C. Forrester and Mary Davis, a legal secretary. He was a 1942 Forest Park High School graduate. He enlisted in the Army's Air Corps during World War II. Trained as a pilot, he served until 1945. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in transportation at the University of Baltimore, where he also taught from 1962 to 1964.

The family of a 28-year-old man found fatally stabbed Friday behind a railroad car in Southwest Baltimore said they're struggling to understand why someone would take his life. LaConte Mitchell, who worked security at Spring Grove Hospital Center, had never been arrested and "was always on the straight and narrow," said Tyronea Williams, 37, a close cousin. "He was a good kid — trouble never found him, and he never looked for it," Williams said. Mitchell was found suffering from stab wounds about 6 a.m. Friday at the end of the 600 block of S. Fulton Ave. in a grassy field near an idled set of railroad cars.

Dr. Ernest H. Hinrichs, a retired Ruxton dentist who was a lifelong model railroader and Pennsylvania Railroad buff, died Feb. 23 from complications of Alzheimer's disease at a Lewisburg, Pa., retirement community. He was 90. The son of a dentist and a homemaker, Ernest Henry Hinrichs was born in Baltimore and raised in Riderwood, where he watched the daily procession of Pennsylvania Railroad passenger and freight trains that passed through the community. After graduating from McDonogh School in 1940, he enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied for two years before enlisting in the Army in 1942.

Walter Scott Brown, a retired Baltimore & Ohio Railroad civil engineer whose career overseeing the railroad's infrastructure spanned nearly 40 years, died Monday at the Fairhaven retirement community in Sykesville of complications from a fall he suffered last month. Mr. Brown, who family members said "remained sharp until the end of his life," was 106. The son of a building contractor and a homemaker, Walter Scott Brown was born at home in Lafayette Square, where he was raised.

Joseph J. Snyder has more than a passing interest in railroading and especially the venerable Baltimore & Ohio, whose storied passenger service is the subject of his recently published book. The B&O invented the passenger train. On Jan. 7, 1830, a horse pulling four coaches carrying passengers who had plunked down 9 cents for one way, or three tickets for 25 cents, inaugurated passenger service on the B&O as Old Dobbin clip-clopped along at a leisurely pace from Mount Clare to the Carrollton Viaduct in Southwest Baltimore.

William R. Smith, a career railroader who rose from coach cleaner to head the Canton Railroad Co. and was also a strong advocate for the port of Baltimore, died Saturday from complications of Parkinson's disease at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. The longtime Ruxton resident was 83. "Bill was a mentor to me and I always appreciated the confidence he had in me," said John C. Magness, president and chief executive officer of the Canton Railroad Co. "He had a bit of an edge and like Earl Weaver, could be tough but he was always right.

Bruce Page Wilson, former president of Mercantile-Safe Deposit & Trust Co., who earlier had been president of the old Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad, died July 5 of complications from a stroke at Nubbin Ridge, his Green Spring Valley home, where he had lived for more than half a century. He was 92. "Bruce Wilson was a very strong and ethical person. He had it all," said H. Grant Hathaway, former chairman and chief executive officer of the old Equitable Trust Bank. "He was ... a terrific competitor.

Charles Swann Roberts, an author and co-founder of publishing company Barnard, Roberts and Co. Inc. known for his extensive histories of the Pennsylvania Railroad, died Aug. 20 from complications of emphysema and pneumonia at St. Agnes Hospital. The Halethorpe resident was 80. Mr. Roberts was working in his Willow Avenue office in Halethorpe, which overlooks the former Pennsy mainline (now the Northeast Corridor) when he was stricken, said a daughter, Jean R. Schweitzer of Catonsville.

Two decades ago, when lawyer Robert Waldman and his family moved to the Annapolis neighborhood of Homewood, there was talk of converting the old railroad right-of-way across from his house into some kind of thruway. An extra lane to take the traffic pressure off West Street, which ran parallel several blocks away; a route for a shuttle bus from downtown Annapolis to Westfield Annapolis Mall - city officials were regularly talking about ways to pave the four-block long stretch of grass that bisected the old neighborhood of mixed-generation families.

The beige-plastic Wilkins-Rogers Mill is unmistakable, as are the red B&O Freight House and the purple Obladi hotel. Rendered in toy building blocks, the replicas of historic Ellicott City landmarks lend an air of authenticity to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum's newest train garden, a 360-degree, custom-built feature that is proving to be a major attraction on Main Street. "This is definitely something unique," Tom Hane, site manager at the Ellicott City Station, said of the display by the Washington Metropolitan Area Lego Train Club.