(The following story by Stephanie Samuel appeared on the Montgomery County Sentinel website on August 19.)
ROCKVILLE, Md. — Plans to delay extended weekend and daytime service on the Penn and Camden lines of the MARC commuter train are bad news for Prince George’s County train riders who have ever been stranded after the last train has left the station.
Visiting University of Maryland professor David Sanni rides the MARC Commuter train’s Camden Line from Baltimore to the College Park campus at 9 every morning. He says he has to be at the train station every morning at 8:15 a.m. or else he will miss the last morning train.
“It means I have to take a longer route,” Sanni says. He would have to take the light rail to BWI airport and take a three-hour Metrobus ride from there to Greenbelt Metro Station. From there, he would have to ride the Metrorail one stop over to get campus, making him more than two hours late for work.
It is equally frustrating when Sanni travels to Lanham for church on Sundays. There is no MARC service on the weekend, and he is again forced to take the three-hour trek via Metrobus to get to the Metrorail system.
“I waste a lot of time,” he says.
Sanni is not the only one who wishes the MARC train would change its schedule to run regularly. New Carrollton City Administrator Mike Downs said his office has received calls from Penn Line riders who have been left stranded by the limited service.
“People call about the service on week [days] because they quit early,” Downs said.
The Camden Line runs from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. via Riverdale, Greenbelt and College Park from 5:10 to 9:30 a.m., breaks for six long hours and picks back up from 3:30 to 7:22 p.m. The Penn Line, also from Baltimore to D.C., runs through Bowie State University, Lanham and New Carrolton practically all day until 6:30 p.m.
Unfortunately for commuters, the service will just have to stay that way. Last week, Maryland Transit Administration Administrator Paul Wiedefeld announced that the MTA is delaying plans to add weekend service to Penn Line and mid-day service to the Camden Line this summer. MTA spokeswoman Jawauna Greene said the delay is caused by complex negotiations between train operators Amtrak and CSX. Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero declined to speak about its talks with MTA, saying the discussions are still in the preliminary stages. CSX, which operates the Camden line, did not contact The Sentinel in time for publication.
However Greene said of the two companies, “CSX operates a heavy amount of freight on weekends. The peak time for Amtrak is on the weekends. You’re talking about their profitability here.”
For the time being, Greene says, “We had to shift priority to make sure that we had greater capacity.” Last November, Gov. Martin O’Malley announced funding for MTA to extend evening service on the Penn Line until midnight. Greene says that it will add 26 train cars to the Penn and Camden Lines as part of a 28-year plan to triple the MARC commuter train’s capacity Sept. 8.
That’s good news for MARC rider Judy Hedgecoth. She has been riding the MARC train to work from Jessup for five years and has had some close calls. If she misses the last evening train to Jessup from College Park, she must take the Metrorail to Union Station in D.C. to catch the train from there.
“It’s really a hassle,” she says.
Also good news for Hedgecoth, the MTA plans to focus on maintenance issues that cause delays. Hedgecoth says she had her share of delays and says they can be a real headache.
As for weekend service, MTA officials said they hope to provide county riders with extended service hours by the end of the year.