Union Station

Grammy-winning country music stars Alison Krauss and Union Station will perform Saturday night at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Gates open at 6:30 p.m. The show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30-$75. Lawn admission for children 12 and younger is free with a paying adult. Merriweather Post Pavilion is at 10475 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. For tickets, call 410-547-SEAT or go to ticketmaster.com.

Thomas Schreiber, a career railroader who had worked in both freight and passenger service, died Monday of pneumonia at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The longtime Sparks resident was 67. Mr. Schreiber, a third-generation railroader whose father and grandfather worked for the old Pennsylvania Railroad, was born in Altoona, Pa., and later moved with his family to Gray Manor, a southeastern Baltimore County community. When he was 15, his family moved to Sparks, where Mr. Schreiber graduated in 1962 from Hereford High School.

In 1835, the first train to reach the nation's capital chugged into the city over the Baltimore and Washington Railroad, as the Washington branch of the Baltimore and Ohio was known then.However, there was probably no more spectacular train arrival in Washington than that of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Federal Express on Jan. 15, 1953.The Boston-Washington overnight train, No. 173, smashed a bumper post, plowed into the station concourse and stopped only after the locomotive fell through the crushed floor into the basement of Union Station.

Seven people received minor injuries Friday morning when two trains collided at low speed in the rail yard at Union Station in Washington, derailing five cars, Amtrak says. Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm said an Amtrak switching-yard locomotive, pulling the private Silver Foot passenger car and the Amtrak Dome Car, collided with a MARC Penn Line train shortly before 9:20 a.m. in the Washington rail yard. He said six Amtrak employees were taken to local hospitals with minor injuries while a passenger aboard the private car was injured but declined a trip to the hospital.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- When Graham Banks arrived at a gala in Kansas City's refurbished Union Station last week, he immediately looked at the ceilings.Gazing at ceilings is a habit of the Portsmouth, England, native, who is general manager of the Baltimore firm Hayles & Howe, an ornamental plaster enterprise that restored the lofty reaches of grand old buildings such as Union Station.As ceilings go, Banks says, the ones in Kansas City's train station are stunners."I thought the Postal Museum was a big project," he says, referring to the ceilings of the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum in Washington.

MARC train service was suspended on the Camden line between Baltimore and Washington after a person was struck by a CSX Corp. freight train in Laurel, a MARC official said. Service was halted in both directions about 2:30 p.m., said Cheron Wicker, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Transit Administration in Baltimore. The MARC train travels between Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Union Station, she said. No information was available on the victim, she said. MTA officials could not estimate when service would be restored, Wicker said.

Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems, the cellular arm of Bell Atlantic Corp., said yesterday that it plans to expand its use of microcellular technology to enhance cellular phone reception indoors at public locations.The new technology will be unveiled publicly for the first time later this month in Washington's Union Station.Microcell technology utilizes the cellular concept on a smaller scale, placing extremely low-power cells in heavily used areas. In Union Station, Bell Atlantic Mobile plans to place a suitcase-sized transmitter and antennae in the Amtrak waiting area.

The Baltimore firm of Williams Jackson Ewing has landed part of a $6.7 million contract to consult on the renovation of Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal, the 81-year-old Beaux Arts landmark that serves 500,000 commuters daily.Williams Jackson Ewing will again be teamed up with LaSalle Partners of Chicago, reuniting two firms that collaborated on the well-received transformation of Washington's Union Station into a retailing and entertainment center as well as a train station. They also worked together to develop the Towson Commons mixed-use project in Baltimore County.

National Train Day Where: Union Station, 50 Massachussetts Ave. N.E., Washington When: Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. What: The third annual celebration of all things train, but train travel in particular. The event commemorates the anniversary of the "golden spike" that joined the 1,776 miles of the Central pacific and Union Pacific railways and created the first transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. There are free events in several U.S. cities, including at Union Station in Washington, where actor Taye Diggs, the spokesperson for National Train Day, will meet and greet the public.

As if the American and National league rosters didn't offer enough for stargazers, a slew of celebrities will be at Camden Yards on Monday for a charity home run hitting contest.Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, James Belushi, Bill Murray, Tom Selleck, Dan Marino, Florence Griffith Joyner, Denzel Washington and Ahmad Rashad are to compete in the Upper Deck Celebrity Home Run Challenge for Charity.The contest will take place after the Heroes of Baseball %o old-timers game, with Jordan, Selleck and the others taking their swings against pitchers from the Heroes game from 1:24 to 2 p.m. Signs will be placed in the outfield, marking distances worth $100, $200 and $300, and a home run is worth $500.

Spurred by recent service disruptions on MARC trains, the Maryland Transit Administration has extended the hours of its customer call center and put other measures in place to respond to customer concerns. Starting immediately, call center hours will roughly match the hours the commuter rail service operates. The center will remain open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday "until further notice." The center had closed at 7 p.m. — long before the last MARC trains of the day left their stations.

Last week, both Maryland Transportation Secretary Beverly Swaim-Staley and Maryland Transit Administration chief Ralign T. Wells owned up to the fact that communication with riders is the agency's No. 1 weakness. It's good that these officials, who seem genuinely concerned about providing good service, recognize the problem. But it might be even worse than they think. Consider the case of Melissa Schober of Baltimore, who wrote a well-reasoned and well-informed email to Wells after a particularly bad commute June 22 — a night of troubles that was overshadowed by the even worse problems the night before.

National Train Day Where: Union Station, 50 Massachussetts Ave. N.E., Washington When: Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. What: The third annual celebration of all things train, but train travel in particular. The event commemorates the anniversary of the "golden spike" that joined the 1,776 miles of the Central pacific and Union Pacific railways and created the first transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. There are free events in several U.S. cities, including at Union Station in Washington, where actor Taye Diggs, the spokesperson for National Train Day, will meet and greet the public.

When the Metro train pulled into the Silver Spring station late Monday afternoon, Michael Corcoran made a split-second decision that might have saved his life. Rather than hoof to the end car, which would conveniently deposit him beside an escalator at his destination, Union Station, he stepped into the third car and took a seat. Corcoran, 39, just felt happy to be escaping his job as a federal contractor before 5 p.m. for a change. Even with the punishing two-hour-plus commute to Jarrettsville, he figured he'd get home early enough to play with his four kids, maybe even mow the grass.

March 31 was a lousy day to observe the travails of life aboard a MARC train. I took two round-trips - one on the Penn Line and one on the Camden Line - and the rides couldn't have gone more smoothly. Where was the dysfunctional MARC I'd been hearing so much about? I was aboard that day as an exercise in making amends. After a recent column implied that MARC riders were a wee bit more persnickety than the typical transit rider, my in-box was flooded with indignant e-mail. One of my more spirited e-mail discussions evolved from ire to mutual respect to an invitation to meet with a group of MARC commuters over a beer.

The emotion and size of the crowd at Tuesday's presidential inaugural in Washington inspired and awed several prominent Howard County Democrats who attended. But getting there and back home presented more practical concerns. MARC commuter trains, Metro subway cars, private autos and a county car and police driver were the different modes used by four leaders to get to Washington's Union Station on Tuesday, the start of their individual and often very personal strolls to the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president.

My wife, Ann, and I took a trip to Kansas City, Mo., in May to attend a genealogy convention. During our visit, I photographed these two kids dashing through the water fountain on the Crown Center plaza, which is located near Union Station and is noted for its shops and restaurants. William Hughes, Baltimore The Sun welcomes submissions for "My Best Shot." Photos should be accompanied by a description of when and where you took the picture and your name, address and phone number. Submissions cannot be individually acknowledged or returned, and upon submission become the property of The Sun. Write to: Travel Department, The Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore 21278, or e-mail Travel@baltsun.

Service was interrupted yesterday on the MARC Camden Line between Baltimore's Oriole Park and Greenbelt after a person was struck by a freight train, transit officials said. Maryland Rail Commuter officials had no information about the victim, who was struck by a CSX Corp. train about 2:30 p.m. on the tracks between the Laurel and Muirkirk stations in Prince George's County, said MARC spokesman Richard Scher. Service resumed about 4:30 p.m. between Union Station and Greenbelt. Shuttle buses carried passengers from Greenbelt to stops farther north, he said.

The beautiful Beaux Arts-style Penn Station was constructed in 1911, and it looks like the windows have not been washed since. The Venetian blinds have not been relieved of their crookedness or the boxes and other paraphernalia at the windows removed from their obtrusive locations. This unattractive scene faces all who pass the station going north on Charles Street and south on St. Paul Street heading downtown. Signs designating the adjacent area as the Station North Arts and Entertainment District have been posted.