Updated: Struck pedestrian shuts down MARC Penn Line for morning commuters
Posted by Jeff Quinton on August 20, 2008I was on the way to the rail station for my morning commute on the MARC Penn Line when I got the following email:
August 20, 2008 5:42 AM
Penn line service is suspended at this time due to a fatality. Passengers should seek alternate transportation. WMATA will honor tickets from Greenbelt and New Carrollton. Camden line is operating on time as alternate transportation.
I haven’t decided yet whether to Metro from Greenbelt or to see if Amtrak has a train I can buy a ticket on - maybe even the Camden line of MARC.
Update
August 20, 2008 6:14 AM
Update: Penn line service is suspended between Baltimore and Washington at this time due to a fatality. Passengers should seek alternate transportation. WMATA will honor tickets from Greenbelt and New Carrollton. Camden line is operating on time as alternate transportation.
MARC (web|news) trains on the Penn Line are suspended this morning until further notice due to a pedestrian accident.
Riders are urged to use the Camden Line instead.
6:57 Update:
Penn line service is suspended between Baltimore and Washington at this time due to a fatality. Passengers should seek alternate transportation. WMATA will honor tickets from Greenbelt and New Carrollton. Camden line is operating on time with overcrowded conditions as alternate transportation.
7:12 Update:
Update: The Penn Line is reopened. The first southbound train has departed Baltimore at 7:10 am making all stops. Expect delays enroute to Washington.
7:47 Update:
Limited Southbound service is operating on the Penn Line. No Northbound service has begun. Extreme overcrowding on Camden Trains continues.
8:24 Update:
Train 417 has departed Baltimore making all stops to Washington.
Service was halted after a man was struck by an Acela Express train near New Carrollton just after 5am Wednesday.
Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Van Veen says northbound train 2150 had left Washington at 5 a.m. Wednesday and struck the person at 5:08 a.m. All Amtrak traffic in both directions was suspended.
The disruption also affected MARC’s Penn Line service, which uses the Amtrak line. MARC announced service had resumed shortly after 7 am, but with delays as long as 90 minutes.
Van Veen says the injured man was airlifted to a local hospital. MARC reported the man had died, but Van Veen could not confirm that. The Prince George’s County Fire Department says the man was about 35-years-old and was transported to an area trauma center in critical condition.
Van Veen says no one on the Acela train was injured.
An Amtrak spokeswoman said it was one of the company’s employees who was struck by an Acela train minutes after it had left Union Station in Washington on its way to New York City earlier this morning.
[…]
Karina Romero, the Amtrak spokeswoman, said the male employee was airlifted to an area hospital by Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department. His condition was unavailable. The Maryland Transit Administration had initially reported that the person had died, but Romero reported at 7:45 a.m. that he was still alive.
Romero said it was “not unusual” for Amtrak employees to be working on the track but she didn’t know exactly what he was doing at the time he was struck.
She said that passengers on Acela train 2150, which struck the employee, sat on the train until about 7:30 a.m., until they could be transferred to another train. She said Amtrak’s police department is investigating the incident and interviewing employees and members of the train crew.
Delayed Amtrak and MARC trains are moving along the one opened track in the order in which they were waiting, Romero said.
Comment by The Baltimore Babe
Man Struck By Train, MARC Penn Line Delays http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082000848.html
An Amtrak Acela train struck a track maintenance worker in Prince George’s County this morning, disrupting East Coast rail traffic and local commuter lines as well.
The Acela train was leaving Washington for Boston when it struck the worker at 5:08 a.m. near the intersection of Lanham and Annapolis roads, outside New Carrollton.
An Amtrak official said the worker had been taken to a local hospital for treatment. Prince George’s emergency officials said the man was in critical condition at the time. A release on the Web site of Maryland’s MARC train line initially described the accident as a fatality.
Amtrak trains and MARC’s Penn Line service between Baltimore and Washington were suspended for about 90 minutes while authorities investigated. A single track was reopened at around 6:45 a.m., allowing service to resume.
Delays of about an hour were expected on both MARC and Amtrak trains, according to an Amtrak official.
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MARC officials said that Penn Line commuters could as an alternative use the Camden Line, which follows a different route from Baltimore to Washington’s Union Station. In addition, Metro was honoring MARC tickets at its Greenbelt and New Carrollton subway stations.
Comment by Bill
Railroad work is right up ther with fishng as the most dangerous jobs in the world. I am a track worker and had several near misses.