BALTIMORE — Officials said passenger rail and commuter service near Baltimore had returned to normal Tuesday night, a Baltimore television station reported on its website.
Crews on Tuesday reopened the two tracks that were blocked when a MARC train and an Amtrak train converged at a bottleneck and derailed Monday afternoon near Penn Station.
MARC Penn line service from Baltimore resumed just before 10 a.m. Amtrak had 15-minute delays Tuesday morning.
The trains, Amtrak Silver Palm train 90 from Miami and MARC train 437 traveling to Washington, apparently “brushed sides. It seemed like they collided on the sides,” said Battalion Chief Charles Paylor of the Baltimore Fire Department.
The second and third cars of the seven-car MARC train went off the tracks just south of Penn Station about 6:20 p.m., according to Suzanne Bond, an MTA spokeswoman. The cars did not overturn.
Emergency crews took three MARC passengers to the hospital. The conductor and a passenger on the Amtrak train were also treated and released from the hospital.
Amtrak workers spent Monday night clearing train cars from the track.
The rail service paid cab and bus fare to many stranded passengers. Amtrak also bused travelers to Washington, D.C., to catch southbound trains and brought in other trains to take northbound passengers to their destinations.
Amtrak estimates the accident will cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.