MARC Train

Maryland Area Regional Commuter Rail
A MARC train on the Brunswick Line at Dickerson Station
A MARC train with bi-levels on the Penn Line at BWI
Overview
Owner	Maryland Transit Administration
Locale	Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area
Transit type	Regional/ commuter rail
Number of lines	3
Number of stations	42
Daily ridership	33,696
Chief executive	John Hovatter
Website	MARC Train official page
Operation
Began operation	1984 (1984)
Operator(s)	Bombardier Transportation (Camden and Brunswick) Amtrak (Penn) (under contract to the Maryland Transit Administration)
Reporting marks	MARC
Infrastructure manager(s)	Amtrak CSX Transportation
Technical
System length	187 mi (301 km)
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge)
Electrification	25Hz AC on the Penn Line
Top speed	125 mph (201 km/h)
System map MARC operates the Brunswick Line (orange), Camden Line (green), and Penn Line (purple).

MARC (Maryland Area Regional Commuter) Train Service (reporting mark MARC), known prior to 1984 as Maryland Rail Commuter, is a commuter rail system comprising three lines in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. MARC is administered by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), a Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) agency, and is operated under contract by Bombardier Transportation Services USA Corporation (BTS) and Amtrak over tracks owned by CSX Transportation (CSXT) and Amtrak.

With some equipment capable of reaching speeds of 125 miles per hour (201 km/h), MARC is purported to be the fastest commuter railroad in the United States.

Train lines

MARC operates 93 trains on a typical weekday over three separate lines of service: the Brunswick Line (18 trains/19 trains on Fridays), the Camden Line (21 trains), and the Penn Line (57 trains). MARC added limited weekend service on the Penn Line on December 7, 2013. Service is suspended or reduced on selected Federal holidays.

Brunswick Line

Main article: Brunswick Line

The Brunswick Line runs about 74 miles (119 km) from Washington, D.C., to Martinsburg, West Virginia, over the CSXT Metropolitan and Cumberland Subdivisions (both former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) lines), and the Amtrak Washington Terminal District. The Brunswick Line service also includes a 14 miles (23 km) branch serving Frederick, which diverges from the Metropolitan Subdivision at East Rocks (just east of Point of Rocks) before traveling over the CSXT Old Main Line and the MDOT Frederick Branch.

Camden Line

Main article: Camden Line

The Camden Line runs about 39 miles (63 km) between Washington, D.C., and Camden Station in Baltimore over the CSXT Capital Subdivision and Amtrak Washington Terminal District. The B&O first began service over portions of this route in 1830, making it one of the oldest passenger rail lines in the U.S. still in operation.

Penn Line

Main article: Penn Line

The Penn Line runs about 77 miles (124 km) between Washington, D.C., and Perryville, Maryland, via Baltimore Penn Station over Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and Washington Terminal District. It is purported to be the fastest commuter rail line in North America, with trains of bi-level cars and electric locomotives capable of operating at speeds up to 125 miles per hour (201 km/h). The service was initially operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad (hence the name) and is the busiest line, carrying more passengers than the other two lines combined. The Penn Line is the only line that operates on weekends.

Special Western Maryland service

Trains have made special weekend trips to and from Cumberland, Maryland. Past events have included trains for Western Maryland residents to attend sporting events in the Baltimore/Washington area, such as Baltimore Orioles or Washington Redskins games, or for Baltimore/Washington residents to attend Railfest in Cumberland and enjoy the scenic mountains and fall foliage of Western Maryland.

History

A MARC EMD F9 leads a service through Point of Rocks in 1987.

Passenger service along the modern-day MARC route began on May 24, 1830, with the first Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) passenger train from Mt. Claire Station in Baltimore to Ellicott City. The train traveled the route of the current MARC Camden Line from Lansdowne to St. Denis. During the mid to late 19th Century, B&O passenger service was extended to Washington, D.C., and over the current MARC Brunswick Line to Martinsburg. Service on the current MARC Penn Line originated during the same period as the local train service of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was later succeeded along the same route by Penn Central and Conrail service.

The passenger trains eventually became unprofitable, and in 1974, the B&O Railroad approached the State of Maryland with an intention of discontinuing the service unless a subsidy could be provided. The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) agreed to provide a partial subsidy of the deficit in 1974, and in 1975 this evolved into an operating agreement with the B&O, where Maryland agreed to pay the total operating deficit for the trains and provide the rolling stock.

In 1976 MDOT entered into a similar agreement with Conrail, which had ended up with responsibility for local passenger train operations in the Northeast Corridor after the bankruptcy of Penn Central and other Northeast railroads. In that same year, the State Railroad Administration was established by Executive Order of the Governor, to oversee these railroad contracts, to procure the needed rolling stock, to apply for and manage federal funding for the commuter rail service, and to administer a state funded subsidy program for shortline freight rail operations, primarily on the Eastern Shore and in Western Maryland.

In 1982, Congress relieved Conrail of the responsibility to operate local passenger rail service, and in 1983, the State entered into an operating agreement with Amtrak to continue this service (now referred to as the Penn Line). The same year Maryland, along with a number of other Northeastern states, took control of its commuter railroads and the "MARC" (Maryland Area Rail Commuter) service name was established. The State Railroad Administration conducted a marketing study, which resulted in the creation of the name and logo of MARC to use as a unifying tool for marketing the service where, at that time, train crews wore either B&O or Amtrak uniforms, and some of the rail cars in use were leased from New Jersey Transit. In 1992, the former State Railroad Administration was merged with the Mass Transit Administration. The Mass Transit Administration was later renamed to Maryland Transit Administration, which now oversees the operation of MARC Train Service.

Operating and maintenance responsibility for the Camden and Brunswick Lines was transferred from CSXT to Bombardier Transportation Services USA Corporation (BTS), a subsidiary of the Canadian company Bombardier Transportation, effective 12:01 a.m. on June 29, 2013. BTS crews started operating MARC trains on Monday, July 1, 2013. CSXT continues to dispatch MARC Camden and Brunswick Line trains after transition on behalf of the MTA.

Contract controversy

Beginning as early as June 2010, MARC began looking for a new operator to replace CSX Transportation for the Camden and Brunswick Lines.

Controversy first arose when the French-owned and Montgomery County, Maryland-based Keolis (already operating Virginia Railway Express trains) was the only bidder for the contract. The bidding process was suspended in the fall of 2010 due to lack of competition. Before bidding reopened in 2011, Maryland passed a law (at the request of Leo Bretholz and other Holocaust survivors) requiring Keolis's majority owner, SNCF (currently solely owned by the French government) to fully disclose its role in transporting Jews to concentration camps during World War II (while SNCF was under control of the Nazi government), to the satisfaction of the Maryland state archivist, before Keolis would be allowed to place a bid for MARC service. Keolis faced similar issues while bidding for VRE operations in 2009, but in the end, they were allowed to run VRE.

Keolis and SNCF lawyers claim that the all documentation required by the law had been produced long before. This was also asserted by Don Phillips in the July 2011 issue of Trains Magazine. Phillips states that a full 914 page independent report and complete history of SNCF's role in the Holocaust, released in 1996, is currently being translated into English. Phillips cites from the publicly available English introduction to the report, noting that while some SNCF workers worked with the Nazis, acts of sabotage were frequent, and the Nazis shot 819 SNCF workers for refusing to carry out the rail orders of the government. An additional 1200 railway workers were themselves sent to concentration camps over SNCF rails. Phillips also notes that SNCF does business with the Israel rail system and works without government prompting to educate the current generation about the war and Holocaust.

As of June, 2011, the future of Keolis's ability to bid on the MARC contract remained up in the air with the new disclosure law in place. No other bidder had emerged to replace CSXT. On June 5, 2011, The Washington Post ran an editorial critical of the disclosure law. The Post claimed that SNCF has been working for years on digitizing its records, and the Maryland law may require items or formats counter to SNCF's current system and/or French law. The Post also reported that some in the Maryland Attorney General's Office worried the law was not Constitutional, may risk retaliation towards Maryland firms overseas, and may risk federal funding for Maryland "by imposing arbitrary procurement demands on a single company."

MTA issued a new Request for Proposals for the operations and maintenance of MARC services on the Brunswick and Camden Lines on July 14, 2011 with a deadline for proposals on November 21, 2011. On October 17, 2012, a $204 million contract to run the CSXT lines was awarded to the Canadian company Bombardier Transportation, effectively ending the Keolis controversy. The pre-service transition period began on the Thursday of that week, during which time CSXT continued to operate MARC trains.

Equipment

Locomotives

MARC Locomotives

	Manufacturer	Model	Quantity	Locomotive Numbers	Notes
	EMD/ASEA	AEM-7	4	4900–4903	AEM-7 4901 has since been moved to Riverside Yard in Baltimore City for long-term storage. All will be retired, scrapped, and replaced by Siemens Chargers by 2017–2018.
	Bombardier-Alstom	HHP-8	6	4910–4915	All will be retired, scrapped, and replaced by Siemens Chargers by 2017–2018.
	EMD	GP39H-2	6	70–75	Units are scheduled to be repowered.
	MPI	MP36PH-3C	26	10–35	Replaced GP40s.
	EMD	GP40WH-2	1	68	68 remains in service and is used as standby power for Amtrak or MARC trains. 69 was purchased by CSX and is now numbered CSXT 9969, it is used on "Office Car Special" trains. The remaining units have been modified into MPI MP32PH-Qs for SunRail.

As the Penn Line is the only electrified line, the AEM-7 and HHP-8 are restricted to that line.

In spring 2008 MARC placed an order for 26 new MPI MP36PH-3C diesel locomotives, which replaced all 19 of the 70s-era GP40WH-2 units. They began arriving in November 2008. All are in service as of March 2011; however, MARC still uses a single GP40WH-2 unit occasionally as a need arises. (Such as when an Amtrak or MARC train malfunctions)

As of June 2016, Amtrak will no longer provide maintenance service for MARC equipment. MARC announced plans in August 2015 to seek funding to procure eight Siemens Charger diesel locomotives to replace its fleet of electric locomotives. They would be attached to an existing order from the Illinois Department of Transportation, in order to take advantage of savings from a larger order than a MARC-only contract, and are planned to be delivered in fall of 2017. In September, the Maryland Board of Public Works approved a $58.1 million contract for the locomotives and associated costs.

Passenger cars

MARC Passenger Cars

	Manufacturer / Model	Quantity		Delivered	Car Numbers	Notes
	Sumitomo/ Nippon Sharyo MARC II	60	26 MARC IIA 15 coaches 11 cab cars	1985–1987	7700–7715 7745–7756	Single level cars. All except 7711-7712 retired after new Bombardier MARC IV cars entered service in 2015. 7709 and 7752 were destroyed in 1996 Silver Spring train collision. 7711–12 were converted to "Bike Cars", equipped with 16 bike racks, left side, and 22 passenger seats on the right.
			34 MARC IIB 28 coaches 6 cab cars	1991–1993	7716–7735 7757–7762 7791–7799	Single level cars. Entire MARC IIB fleet underwent minor overhaul 2009–2011 conducted by Bombardier. 7720 was destroyed in 1996 Silver Spring train collision.
	Kawasaki MARC III	63	49 coaches 14 cab cars	1999–2001	7800–7834 7845–7858 7870–7876 7890–7896	Bilevel cars. Scheduled to undergo minor overhaul by Bombardier. 7826–7834 and 7855–7858 are ex-VRE cars purchased used in 2008. They were first purchased by VRE in 2000 using an option for MARC's original MARC III order.
	Pullman MARC Gallery	12	12 coaches	2004	7900–7911	Bilevel "gallery" cars. Ex-Metra cars originally built in the early 1970s and purchased by MARC in 2004 to quickly increase system capacity. The gallery cars are now in storage and are to be used in case of an equipment shortage. Replaced by MARC IV cars. 8 of these cars are retired. Car 7905, 7911 and others has been returned to Metra, primarily to the 127th Street Yard on the Rock Island District.
	Bombardier MARC IV	54	39 coaches 15 cab cars	2014–2015	8000–	Bilevel cars marketed by Bombardier as "MultiLevels". Delivery began June 2014. Coaches entered service spring 2015; cab cars have not yet entered service.

While many consists on all three lines are mixed with single- and bi-level cars, the majority of rush-hour trains on the Penn Line are composed mainly of Kawasaki bi-levels, while trains on the Brunswick Line and the Camden Line use more single levels (particularly for shorter 3–4 car trains). As of the entry of the Bombardier MARC IV coaches into service, rush-hour Penn Line trains are composed almost exclusively of MARC III bilevels. The Bombardier MARC IV "multilevel" cars and Sumitomo/Nippon Sharyo MARC IIB single level cars are used mostly on Brunswick and Camden Line trains, in addition to midday Penn Line trains. The Pullman gallery cars were operated only on Brunswick Line trains to Brunswick or Martinsburg due to their restriction to use at low-level platforms only.

Like most other commuter rail systems in North America, all trains are operated with a cab car from which the engineer can control the train. The cab car is typically at the head of trains traveling toward Washington to keep diesel fumes away from the terminal. To accommodate elevation gains, the locomotive is at the head of trains heading away from Washington. In the early 2000s a single unpowered EMD F cab unit, #7100 (ex-Baltimore & Ohio Railroad F7 #4553), occasionally substituted for a cab car. In addition to serving as a Non-Powered Control Unit, the unit is also outfitted with a head-end power generator to supply electricity to the train.

To cope with increasing ridership, the MTA announced in August 2008 the acquisition of 13 Kawasaki bi-level passenger cars from VRE, originally scheduled to be placed in service by November 2008. The first units were placed in service in mid-January 2009 on the Brunswick line. The MTA has announced that all 13 cars will be placed in service on the Brunswick Line to replace the aging ex-Metra gallery cars. These units have seats with a slightly different design facing towards the center of the cars (as opposed to facing the ends as on the original MARC cars). The ex-VRE cab cars (7855–7858) also use conventional ditch lights as opposed to the gyra lights used on the original MARC III cab cars. The $22 million purchase is a 10% increase in fleet size from 122 passenger cars. However, due to an increase in ridership, the ex-Metra cars have remained in service along the Brunswick Line and the ex-VRE cars operate across all 3 lines.

In 2011 MARC ordered 54 new bi-levels from Bombardier to increase capacity. The cars were purchased using an un-exercised option from NJ Transit. The MARC order consists of 39 trailers and 15 cab cars. The cars will replace the MARC IIA single level cars and gallery cars, resulting in a net increase of 16 cars. Delivery is scheduled to begin in 2013.

Incidents

1996

Main article: 1996 Maryland train collision

MARC Memorial in the grounds of the Brunswick train station.

On February 16, 1996, during the Friday evening rush hour, an eastbound train headed to Washington Union Station via the Brunswick Line collided with the westbound Amtrak Capitol Limited headed to Chicago via Pittsburgh. The collision occurred at Georgetown Junction on a snow-swept stretch of track just west of Silver Spring, Maryland. The crash left 11 people dead aboard the MARC train. Three died of injuries suffered in the impact alone, with the rest succumbing to the ensuing smoke and flames or a combination of the two. Engineer Ricky Orr and conductors Jimmy Major Jr. and Jim Quillen were among the victims. Eight Jobs Corps students also were killed during the accident.

The NTSB report concluded that the MARC crew apparently forgot the approach signal aspect of the Kensington color-position signal after making a flag stop at Kensington Station. The MARC train was operating in push mode with the cab control car out front. The Amtrak locomotives were in the crossover at the time of the collision; the MARC cab control car collided with the lead Amtrak unit, F40PH #255, rupturing its fuel tank and igniting the fire that caused most of the casualties. The second unit was a GE Genesis P40DC #811, a newer unit that has a fuel tank that is shielded in the center of the frame. The official investigation also suggests that the accident might have been prevented if a human-factors analysis had been conducted when modifications to the track signaling system were made in 1992 with the closing of nearby QN tower.

2008

On February 7, 2008 a train derailed at Union Station after it was hit by an Amtrak switcher locomotive. The train was still unloading passengers at the time of impact, and seven people received minor head and neck injuries. The Amtrak locomotive was attempting to couple to the train and was reportedly moving too fast.

2010

Two significant events in 2010 received official response.

On June 21, 2010, northbound Amtrak-operated Penn Line train 538 broke down at 6:23 p.m. Temperatures inside the train reached 100 degrees due to malfunctioning air conditioning. After passengers called 911, 10 people were treated at the scene for heat-related problems. All passengers were cleared from the scene by 9:40 pm. This incident prompted MDOT Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley to apologize to customers aboard Penn Line train 538 on June 27, 2010.

On June 28, an Amtrak engineer operating a MARC train overran a scheduled stop in Odenton, without notice to passengers. Secretary Swaim-Staley was aboard the train at the time, and issued public statements about the situation. Amtrak CEO Joseph H. Boardman apologized to riders the following morning.

This pair of events prompted Amtrak to draft an emergency response plan for broken down MARC trains.

Proposed service expansion

In the first decade of the 21st century ridership increased significantly, and the system neared capacity for its current configuration. With the area population growing and the BRAC process poised to bring new jobs to Aberdeen Proving Ground and Ft. Meade, both of which are served by nearby stations, the state saw the need to expand service to accommodate growth. In September 2007, MTA Maryland unveiled an ambitious 30-year plan of system improvements. Though funding sources had not been established at that time, the plan represented the state's goals of increasing capacity and flexibility. Proposed improvements included:

• Acquisition of new equipment. 54 Bombardier MultiLevels were ordered to replace aging single-level cars.
• Weekend service on the Penn Line. Service began on December 7, 2013, between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., including several round trips going to Martin State Airport. There are 9 round trips on Saturday (3 to Martin State Airport) and 6 on Sunday (2 to Martin State Airport).
• Increased mid-day service and reverse commute service on the Camden and Brunswick Lines. As of 2015, there is a somewhat limited reverse commute service in effect on the Camden Line.
• Extension of service past Union Station to L'Enfant and Northern Virginia along tracks used by VRE trains, thus relieving pressure on the Washington Metro.
• More daily trips east of Penn Station, including improved service to Aberdeen Proving Ground.
• Service beyond Perryville to Newark, Delaware, or Wilmington, Delaware, providing a connection to SEPTA's regional rail services.
• New or expanded tunnels along the Northeast Corridor in Baltimore.
• New stations in Baltimore, providing direct connections with the Metro Subway, and service to Johns Hopkins Hospital and Bayview Medical Center.
• Rapid transit-like service through Baltimore.

While many of these proposals would require expensive capital improvement and years or decades to implement, the agency would like to put others into action as quickly as possible, suggesting that, for instance, Penn Line weekend service could have begun as early as 2008. However, budgetary issues have delayed any such expansions. In Spring 2009, to offset such budget shortfalls, ticket sales employees at most non-Amtrak stations were replaced with Amtrak "Quik-Trak" touchscreen ticket machines, and some train services have been eliminated or scaled back. For example, Train 871, the 1:30 pm train on the Brunswick line, now operates only on Fridays. Ticket machines were also added to stations that were not previously staffed, such as Halethorpe. The only remaining staffed stations, Odenton and Frederick, are staffed by Commuter Direct.

External links

• Maryland Transit Administration
• MARC System Map
• MARC Current Train Status Using GPS Technology
• MARC Railfan Site