I 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.

ABC 7:

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.

WBAL.com

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.

Baltimore Sun

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.

Examiner

Wabtec Corp.’s MotivePower subsidiary has received a $95 million order for commuter locomotives from the Maryland Transit Administration, the company announced Monday.

The locomotives, to be used for Maryland’s MARC commuter rail service, will be built in Boise, Idaho. They will be delivered this year and next.

MARC, with more than 30,000 daily riders, shuttles commuters on three lines, most notably between Baltimore’s Penn Station and Washington’s Union Station.

Known as Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp., Wabtec books about $1.5 billion in annual sales.

WBAL TV reported on their 11 p.m. newscast last night about an attack on an MTA bus in Baltimore Monday night that appears to be racially motivated. 2 white men claim they were assaulted on the 64 bus by youths yelling racial slur and that no one on the bus, including the driver, would help them. The slideshow and the video at the story link at the top of this post have pictures of the victims after the attack.

The victims also claim the driver refused to call 911 for assistance when this was going on. The TV report indicated that the men were dropped off by Harbor Hospital, which is along the route. MTA officials say they are investigating.

This attack is in the aftermath of a previous attack of a white woman by 9 teenagers on a bus that was ruled by officials to not be a hate crime. The victim denied claims that she provoked her attackers in that case. Michelle Malkin blogged previously about the victim being under police protection. Malkin also has a picture of the victim in that case.