Son-of-a-#()&%!#&-b*tch..........Okay, can I just have the guy declared mentally incompetent? Please, please, pretty please?

Check out the STB filings at www.stb.dot.gov . Yep, apparently they still have someone working on weekends, or else they file the stuff electronically and it gets posted at whatever date the server finishes processing it.

So you don't have to open up all those bloated PDFs and read yards of balderdash, here's the gist of it:

James Riffin, the same chap that earlier filed to claim operating rights over the "Northern Central" from Baltimore to York and then over the Ma & Pa in central Baltimore, has now filed to assume operating rights over the former Baltimore & Annapolis interurban railroad AND the ex-Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis railroad in Anne Arundel and Prince George's Counties in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

The "quick and dirty" version of events: Once again, the guy is claiming that the abandonment paperwork and procedures were not carried out according to the letter of the then-existing laws, and that therefore subsequent events surrounding the rights-of-way are not legally binding and are therefore null and void if another "transportation provider" applies to operate--and since he now says he has a "successful" operation going in western Maryland, his application qualifies. He is therefore trying to override both the Pippen operation that ran freight over a remnant of the B&A in later days (the later-day Baltimore & Annapolis, with its GE 70-tonner in the B&O Museum) and the subsequent acquisition and operation by Maryland's MTA for Baltimore's Central Light Rail Line from the ex-B&O (now CSX) connection in Brooklyn to northern Glen Burnie.

Reading between the lines and weeding out all the excess verbiage wasted in the official bureaucratese, the guy not only wants to assume operation over all the existing trackage, but also extend the tracks south of the current "end-of-track" at Cromwell Station to Annapolis for -yep, you guessed it--commuter and dinner train operation. And this time, it looks like he thought things through--it appears he plans to pursue "legal remedies" against the State of Maryland and the Maryland MTA for funds to re-lay the now-removed trackage. And he even went as far as to include language covering the spot where the present-day B&A bike trail detours around the former route, which is now underneath the parking lot of Marley Station Mall.

Editorial observations follow: It appears, to this reader/writer, that the former "rationale" that we assigned to this guy--claiming to be a railroad so as to claim exemption from environmental regulation on his Cockeysville, Md. real estate--is incorrect, and that we're dealing with someone who, for whatever deluded reasons, has a vendetta against the Maryland MTA and the state. His actions of late have centered against property owned/controlled/etc. by government bodies, and the MTA has been involved in both the Northern Central plan and the Baltimore proposal.

But wait: it gets worse.

The chaps at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum have been kind enough to provide photos of the guy and his "operatives" from when they were at the Museum scoping things out for that last filing; even with cell phone camera quality, posts of the photos to others have revealed these blokes making their presence known (and all too well, because they keep asking far-too-nosy questions of the wrong folks) in recent weeks at the East Broad Top (strange, because the RR lives or dies on whether they were officially "abandoned" or not); the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum; the Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern; that branch off the Pope's Creek line to Indian Head's military base in southern Maryland; the Wilmington & Western; and the Pioneer Coal Mine and Tunnel in Ashland, Pa. (mineral rights?).

I have e-mailed these photos to the Grand Canyon RR, the Cumbres & Toltec, and the Durango & Silverton, with "shoot on sight" orders. Contact me by personal message if you want these photos for "warning" posters on your operation.

My sincere thanks to our chooses-to-remain-anonymous cohort "Trainlawyer" for tipping me off to this latest atrocity. If you insist on torturing yourselves, more on the filing is at the following:

http://www.stb.dot.gov/filings/all.nsf/a7112cc28c158bd0076dc88/41APRIL-FOOL-FOLKS!!!!!cd164b80f664e85257?OpenDocument

Alexander D. Mitchell IV

I like the url at the end of the post.

Sandy, I know it's April 1, but are you trying to give us all a heart attack???

The thing is, some track still survives intact in Annapolis - surrounded by what is now a posh subdivision. The ROW is used by Baltimore Gas & Electric.

Tom Cornillie

The key to a good hoax is that it is believable, at least at first reading. I was actually reaching for the telephone when I reached the URL.

I really hope you have not given our modern answer to Dogberry (see Shakespeare, William Much Ado About Nothing Act V Scene 1) or his faithfull sidekick, the Important Railroad Exectutive, any ideas.

GME

Monday morning addendum -

I would be happy to nail some of Brother Mitchell's posters to telephone poles and station walls up here and I would even venture a small wager that the good people at 395 E Street, S.W., in the District would not be averse to one or two copies.

Would have been completely believable if you had included the Chesapeake Beach RR in this list. Who needs MD 260?

Bob