Last night at 7:12, as I waited for the train home, my blackberry buzzed.It was an email from MD MTA saying that the 442 train, which leaves Union Station at 7:30, was being delayed to switch out a locomotive.

About 5 minutes later, the drama queen of a (male) MARC employee who works at Union Station came out to tell everybody taking the Penn Line to come into the waiting area at Gate B. He proceeded to relay the same information from the email in a much less eloquent fashion.

He claimed that they hoped to have the engine swapped out and be on the way only 20 minutes behind schedule. I’ve seen a couple of loco swaps in recent weeks unfortunately and this sounded a bit unrealistic so I went back out to Gate A to try to decide what to do. I ultimately decided to take the 7:35 Camden Line train to Dorsey – figuring it would be faster than waiting to go to BWI on the delayed train.

As I waited on the track announcement for that train, a MARC employee (presumably the same one from before) made an announcement on the PA system that, due to the delay on the Penn Line, passengers with flights at BWI who wanted to make their plane should take the Camden Line train all the way to Camden Yards and then take the light rail to BWI.

This advice didn’t fully sink in until a woman sitting in front of me before the Camden Line train was talking out the circumstances on her cellphone. She ultimately decided to wait on the Penn Line train. I did see tourists boarding the Camden Line train who had flights who had been waiting on the Penn Line.

I decided to investigate and determined that the Camden Line train would arrive at Camden Yards at 8:50. The immediate two light rail trains from Camden Yards don’t appear to stop at BWI so then you’d be leaving on the 9:08 and would arrive at 9:35.

Assuming the Penn Line train was 20 minutes late leaving, you’d get to the BWI station around 8:30 and then the bus ride to the terminal would take no more than 10-15 minutes. That would place you at the airport at least 45 minutes faster than taking the Camden Line and light rail. As it was, I got an email as I rode on the Camden Line that said the Penn Line train left 30 minutes late, which still would have gotten passengers to BWI signficantly faster than the Camden Line and Light Rail.

I’m somewhat amazed that the ability to tell time and read a schedule before giving such advice is not a skill that MARC requires of their employees at Union Station. Some people may have missed their flights either way, but some of them could have made it to BWI significantly faster and without the hassle of having to transfer over to light rail and backtrack to get to the airport had there been some basic competency in the MARC employee at Union Station.