Railroads

WASHINGTON - Tankers filled with deadly chemicals are likely to continue to roll through Baltimore and other major cities despite new federal rules initially aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophic accidents or terrorist threats by sending much of the cargo through less-populated areas. Beginning next month, railroads must analyze alternative routes for shipping chlorine and other hazardous materials, and pick the path they find to be the safest and most secure, as well as practical and "commercially viable."

THE MARYLAND economy has come a long way since the first ship docked at the port of Baltimore in 1706. Its diversity now includes manufacturing, high-tech medicine, aerospace and services.It's easy to forget how critical the port remains to our jobs and state economy. It generates 66,000 jobs, $1.3 billion in revenues and more than $140 million in state and local taxes. Through it, America sells everything from corn to cars to the markets of the world.Whether its business will grow or shrink depends on a decision that will soon be reached by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which must approve or deny the acquisition of Conrail by two other East Coast railroads, CSX and Norfolk Southern.

It was not many years ago that it seemed quite possible to imagine an America with no railroads left at all, and no need for them, so thoroughly had the illusory dream of the open road beguiled us.Each year, the percentage of the nation's goods that moved by rail -- a figure that was once just about 100 percent -- dwindled still further. The only people who considered traveling by train were the odd or the nearly destitute.It seemed as if an obsolete technology was headed the way of the canal boat or the prairie schooner.

WITH format change mourned as a loss2 I can only wonder whether Jesus would rejoice.Stanley L. RodbellColumbiaConrail acquisition will be good for city, stateTransportation has consistently been one of Maryland's greatest economic development strengths, playing a pivotal role our state's ability to attract and retain businesses and to nurture business growth.Site location and economic development experts widely acknowledge the overall high quality of Maryland's transportation infrastructure -- highway system, port, airport and public transportation -- and the state's commitment to maintaining it.These are all public resources over which Marylanders, through their state government, maintain a substantial degree of strategic control.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S plan for restructuring Amtrak is wrong in so many ways that it's hard to know what to focus on. But here are two of the more bone-headed ideas: * Making the states responsible for providing passenger rail service. This, of course, is in line with the administration's desire to push off everything it can onto the already hard-strapped states, but it makes no more sense to do this with trains than it does with homeland security. The railroads practically originated the idea of interstate commerce in this country, and there's a reason why they ought to remain a federal concern.

WASHINGTON -- All major freight railroad lines and many passenger operations may come to a halt at 12: 01 a.m. July 24, when the last of a series of "cooling-off periods" in labor talks expires and a strike or lockout is permitted under federal law.After nearly two years of talks, 35 major railroads, bargaining as a unit, have reached agreements with unions representing fewer than half their 145,000 unionized employees. Rail negotiations usually run down to the wire, but big differences remain with several groups, especially the track maintenance employees.

Her name is so linked to Baltimore's port that it has been renamed the "Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore." For well over a half-century, Bentley has followed and championed the causes of the city's maritime industry, as a journalist, Nixon administration appointee, congresswoman and consultant. She has been called "the godmother of the port," which she has described as being akin to her own child. This month, the Baltimore Museum of Industry gave Bentley the 2010 William Donald Schaefer Industrialist of the Year Award, presented each spring to visionary local business leaders.

SEE IF YOU CAN find the common thread here: During the heat wave just passed, afternoon trains on MARC's Camden line were forced to poke along at 40 mph, while a few miles away the same agency's Penn Line trains were chugging along at 70. Virginia Railway Express commuter trains out of Washington also had to slow down to 40 mph, until they reached Manassas, at which point they moved back up to the usual 60. Amtrak trains in New York state galloped up...

Any attempts to reduce the flow of hazardous chemicals through Baltimore's Howard Street Tunnel, where a chemical-laden train derailed July 18 and burned for four days under ground, would face almost insurmountable legal and practical obstacles, safety experts say. And the technology that might make the tunnel safer is so expensive and glitch-prone that it has rarely been tried. After the derailment of a CSX train carrying eight tank cars of acid and other dangerous chemicals, Gov. Parris N. Glendening promised to convene a task force to look at ways to make the tunnel safer.

Culminating nearly a year of negotiations that one top state official said had "soap opera-like qualities," Maryland gave its blessing yesterday to CSX and Norfolk Southern's $10.2 billion plan to take over Conrail.During a ceremony at Dundalk Marine Terminal attended by several hundred people, Gov. Parris N. Glendening praised the deal, saying it assures continued commuter rail service, infrastructure improvements, more jobs in Western Maryland and, perhaps most importantly, competition between two Class I railroads.