Letter from MARC Regarding Earthquake

The following is a letter to MARC Customers from Train Service Director John Hovatter.

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First and foremost, I want to thank all of our passengers for their patience with the situation we faced yesterday afternoon and evening. I know that your commute home was slow and took much longer than usual. MARC, CSX, and Amtrak's first priority is the safety of our customers and this is why trains operated at significantly reduced speeds until about 6:00pm on the Penn Line, 8:30pm on the Brunswick Line, and 9:00 on the Camden Line.

Both CSX and Amtrak made a safety-based decision to significantly reduce train speeds to what is known as "restricted speed". This speed, defined as "15 miles per hour, or one-half the range of vision" permits locomotive engineers to quickly bring a train to a stop if a track defect or obstruction (e.g. downed tree) is seen. While some passengers expressed frustration that the first train cleared a segment of track with no problem and why other trains were not permitted to resume regular speeds, the fact is that there were numerous after-shocks and the potential for further damage. In addition, since an earthquake is an unexpected event in the Washington-Baltimore region, both railroads wanted to make certain that the tracks were safe for our trains to operate on. The MTA and MARC Train Service fully support these decisions.

MARC management were in constant contact with CSX and Amtrak management and safety inspectors and pressed them to resume normal operations as soon as it was deemed safe. Email messages were sent and the MTA website updated as soon as new information became available. However, the E-mail alert system, which is used by many other transit providers on the east coast, was overwhelmed by the demand--both for email alerts and general high traffic on the internet. Many messages took hours to get out and we understand that added to frustration. Our Twitter feed at @mtamaryland was updating in real-time, as was our website.

Amtrak and CSX worked all night to get rested crews to operate trains this morning. CSX did have problems finding sufficient crews for Brunswick Line trains, so several trains had to wait at their origin points for the conductors and engineers to be rested according to Federal Railroad Administration regulations.

Once again, I thank you for your patience and understanding today and for your continued patronage of MARC.