Subway

A man armed with a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun attempted to rob an Ellicott City fast-food shop late Saturday night, but fled when a frightened employee ran to the back of the restaurant, Howard County police said.The man entered the Subway shop in the 9200 block of Route 40 about 11:50 p.m. Saturday and ordered the clerk to give him money from the cash register, police said.When the employee ran to the rear of the store, the would-be robber ran from the restaurant.POLICE LOG* Elkridge: 200 block of Keeton Way: A resident returning home late Wednesday night was punched by a burglary suspect who was prying a side window.

BOSTON - In a direct response to the March train bombings in Spain that killed 191 people, transit authorities here will begin random searches of passenger bags on subways and commuter railways. The nation's first comprehensive policy of inspecting packages on public transit will start next month, Police Chief Joseph Carter of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said yesterday. "Explosives are mainly what we are looking for," said Carter, whose agency is known in this region as "the T."

THIS IS A TOUGH business, and sometimes you have to ask the tough questions, which is why I drove over the ribbon of black-topped hell that is Philadelphia Road in Rosedale the other day to hang with Jared the Subway guy. Jared Fogle, of course, is the former world-class fatso who lost 235 pounds on a diet of low-fat Subway sandwiches and parlayed that into a career as the chain's poster boy for nutritious, alternative fast-food fare. When I got to the Subway where he was doing his latest promotional appearance, he was greeting lunchtime customers and posing for pictures.

A man was killed yesterday morning in downtown Baltimore after he jumped in front of a subway train at the Lexington Market Metro station, officials said. When Baltimore City Fire Department authorities reached the station just after 8 a.m., they found the man, who appeared to be 35 to 40 years old, trapped underneath a train. He had been run over by one car and he was rescued under a second car, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman. He was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center and died shortly after reaching the hospital, said Jawauna Greene, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Transit Administration.

"Subway Lives," by Jim Dwyer, 312 pages, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, N.Y., $20.IN THE VAST hinterland beyond the Hudson River, the New York City subway system is as potent a symbol of mythic malevolence as we have. Most of us would rather cross the River Styx on a leaky inner tube than step down into underground New York at, say, 3 a.m.Most of the 3.76 million people who ride it daily seem to feel the same way, if Jim Dwyer's book "Subway Lives" tells it right. Nobody likes the subway very much, but everybody loves to tell stories about it. Dwyer's are pretty good.

Nine Metro subway passengers were injured yesterday morning when their train struck a maintenance truck on the tracks near the State Center station at West Preston and Eutaw streets. The Maryland Transit Administration said nine of the 24 passengers on the southbound train were taken to hospitals and treated for injuries including bumps, bruises and neck and back pain. Two workers on the truck were treated at Maryland General Hospital and released. The truck, which has tires for street driving and wheels for the rails, was in the tunnel for "scheduled, authorized maintenance" about 10 a.m. when the train hit it from behind, said Suzanne Bond, a Maryland Transit Administration spokeswoman.

NEW YORK -- "Rush hour" took on new meaning for Vida Boateng yesterday when she boarded an IRT No. 3 train as a mother of one child and got off a mother of two.She gave birth to a curly haired, 7-pound, 1-ounce girl in a subway car that was rapidly converted to a subterranean delivery room by Emergency Medical Service and Transit Authority personnel.Ms. Boateng, 22, set out from her home on St. John's Place in Brooklyn in the morning to shop for baby clothes before a scheduled visit to her obstetrician, who had said to expect the birth around Jan. 25."

Finding a Subway in Baltimore is getting easier. By year's end, the sandwich-maker will have 56 restaurants in Baltimore, twice as many as it had three years ago. In the rest of Maryland, Subway has added 80 stores in the past three years, increasing the chain's count to 190 beyond the city. Baltimore and the mid-Atlantic region helped lead Subway's charge last year past McDonald's to become the largest restaurant chain in the country. The city and the region ranked No. 1 in terms of store openings for the chain.

Jean and Bryan Ledoux of Glen Burnie say their 16-year-old son was among scores of teens stranded outside RFK Stadium after the Guns N' Roses concert ended Friday night because the Washington subway had stopped running long before the event ended.The couple said they had double-checked the Metro's closing time with Metro employees at the New Carrollton station when they dropped off their son, Benoit Martineaux."We were told there would be no problem, that the Metro would not leave those kids stranded," said Mrs. Ledoux.

Maryland Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan said yesterday that the state has ruled out consideration of a subway for the proposed transit line from Woodlawn to Fells Point. Officials are planning only for a possible light rail line or rapid buses, he said. The decision was made public yesterday at the first of several public meetings on the proposed routes that would expand mass transit in the Baltimore region. Flanagan said it reflects the competitive market for federal transit money.