The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 19

THE SUN, Sunday, October 19. 1980 i B7 Amtrak set to open BWI rail station linking airport to D.C., Baltimore engineer for Amtrak, said in a telephone interview from Philadelphia that he was not aware that Amtrak had been told in advance that the stucco material would crack. However, he said that Amtrak knows the cracks exist and is trying to determine their cause and significance. At this point, he said, Amtrak does not consider them a major concern and is satisfied with the construction work. Mr.

Demas said there are many reasons other than the vibrations that the material could have cracked; for example, the stucco could have dried too fast and shrunk after it was put up. The state first studied the possibility of building such an airrail station in 1968 and ultimately presented a report to the federal Railroad Administration. Five years ago, Congress approved the project and provided the funds to build it. The station will be officially dedicated at noon Thursday. President Carter and scores of other federal, state and local officials have keen invited to attend the expecting a definite increase in international, regional and even commuter traffic through BWI." In fact, Amtrak estimates that about two-thirds of the 570 passengers expected to use the' station each weekday will be commuters to Washington and Baltimore.

The station will be served by Amtrak intercity trains and Conrail commuter trains, officials said, but not all trains that travel between Baltimore and Washington, such as the Metroliner, will stop at the station. Each weekday, 14 trains 7 northbound and 7 southbound-will stop at the station, with an extra northbound train on Friday nights. Four of the trains will be Conrail commuters, two will be Amtrak's commuter between Philadelphia and Washington, the Chesapeake, and eight will be high-speed Amtrak trains. On weekends, there will be eight trains on Saturdays and nine trains on Sundays. Generally, the trains will run from early morning until early evening.

There will be free parking available at the station on a 392-car parking lot built by the state Department of Transportation. The state also built the access road to the station. A spokesman for the Department of Transportation said the work had been contracted for $1.3 million, but so far, only slightly more than $934,000 has been spent. The station itself is a small, drab-looking gray structure with a covered connecting bridge for passengers to walk between the loading platforms for the northbound and southbound tracks. When the facility opens, it will have a ticket counter, an automated snack bar, a closed-circuit security system, telephones, rest rooms and seats.

Even as workers put. the finishing touches on the station last week, there was evidence of a problem with the building, however. Already, the stucco on the exterior walls of the station has started to crack. Allan Younger, a supervisor for the construction firm that built the station for Amtrak, said the hairline cracks had been caused by vibrations from passing trains. He contended that the station is simply poorly designed and that such material should never have been used because of the vibration problem.

"It has hairline cracks all through it. But that's what (Amtrak officials! wanted, and that's what they got," he said, referring to the stucco, which is a mixture of cement and sand applied in layers to the station's plasterboard walls. Mr. Younger said that even before the station was built, his company advised Amtrak that the mixture would crack, but Amtrak insisted that it would not. So the stucco was used, Mr.

Younger said, and it cracked. He said Amtrak then said it "would live with the cracks." Mr. Younger said the cracks are an aesthetic problem rather than a serious structural difficulty. "This building will be standing for years unless a train hits it," he added. Carl Demas, senior structural design By Kami E.

Warmkessel In the past, if you had to catch a plane at Baltimore-Washington International Airport and didn't want to leave your car at the airport, you had three choices-ask a friend to drive you or take a bus or taxi. Beginning next Sunday, you will have another choice. You can take the train. On October 26, Amtrak is officially opening its new million rail station near the airport, and officials are touting building on the heavily traveled Northeast rail corridor as the first "intercity transportation center." Other cities have rail stations linked to their airports, but this is the first station that links several cities with an airport, a state official said. Amtrak and BWI officials say the station not only will make the newly remodeled airport more accessible to travelers, but will serve commuters as well, "This new terminal will have a economic impact on both Washington and Baltimore," said Joe Hyman, a senior marketing analyst for Amtrak.

"We are A one-way ticket on a Conrail train from Baltimore to the BWI station will cost $1.75, officials said. The ride from Washington's Union Station to BWI will cost $3.50. Fares on the regular Amtrak trains are higher. For example, a one-way ticket from Baltimore to the new station costs $3.55, and from Washington $5.55. Even the higher Amtrak fares are less than the airport's limousine service, which charges $4 a person to ride from downtown Baltimore and $6.50 from downtown Washington.

If the trains run on time, it could be faster to ride the train. The bus ride from Baltimore takes 20 minutes, compared to 15 minutes on the train, and the bus ride from Washington takes about 50 minutes, compared with 30 to 40 minutes on the train. The station is about a mile from the airport terminal on state-owned land just off Route 170, so travelers will have to take free shuttle buses, operated by the airport, to and from the terminal. Owner could accept rent control LANDLORD, from Bl 'years ago-he also concedes that his rental income is an "extra," not a sole source of income. Although he averages a 17 percent annual net yield on his real estate investments, Mr.

Fisher says "it doesn't go far, and you have to work hard for it. I'd never try to make a living doing this." Many problems in his business, he thinks, are "unre-solvable. because the nature of the system is antagonistic. Some tenants have no idea how to keep house; some landlords have no empathy. I'm not in this for philanthropy, but I try to be evenhanded and still make a reasonable A number of Mr.

Fisher's tenants, interviewed last week, labeled him as an "average" or "pretty good" landlord who tended to put off making cosmetic repairs but generally responded to emergencies quickly. City housing inspectors don't have much material on his houses, and say he "isn't a nuisance." Compared with the poor reputations and inspectors thick files on many other inner-city landlords, these descriptions are almost complimentary. While several tenants showed a visitor damaged ceilings, broken screen doors, rotted window frames and badly peeling paint, their houses also showed signs of recent work -freshly patched teilings, newly installed drainpipes, replaced windows and cinder blocks in backyard walls. And almost all said they couldn't remember having any serious problems with the plumbing, heating or roof. "This is better than most places I've lived," said a young hairdresser and mother who rents a house on Patterson Park avenue for $130 a month.

"He seems like a nice man. and we haven't found anything wrong with the house so far," added her husband, a construction worker. Two blocks away, another woman pointed to rotting window frames in her immaculate house and complained bitterly that Mr. Fisher "says he wants to keep me because I'm a good tenant, but then he won't fix anything up nrf! I Ill 1 i ILIA JJUUlli-b wSP'4vrt' waaAw IMW.II JWX'V :1 when I ask him to." "He hollers so much every time I complain that I don't bother to call anymore," said a woman who rents a house on Oliver street for $142 a month. The fence behind her house was hopelessly ripped, but a new drainpipe had just been installed.

"I've seen a lot worse than him," she added. Mr. Fisher readily acknowledges that to save costs, he usually hires inexpensive "jack-leg," or day laborers, to perform carpentry and painting repairs. And he admits that "25 percent of my property I'd be ashamed to show you." But he boasts-and city records bear him out-that he generally keeps furnaces, electrical and plumbing systems in order, and has not appeared in Housing Court since he attended a landlord education clinic sponsored by the city Property Owners' Association five years ago. "I'm a small businessman, and most rental property in the city is owned by people like me.

They do make money, but they try to be conscientious, and with limited rents they don't have much left for extras. I don't have a crew to send out for every phone call," he said. "It isn't easy." The ideal rental real estate investment, Mr Fisher thinks, is "one building with 16 units and a superintendent." "But I started with limited capital, and I had to buy single houses. I might sell out tomorrow," he said, "but except for the Washington speculators, there's no market." He has a wealth of annoyance (if not horror) stories: the teenagers who ripped the toilets and sinks out of a recently vacated house; the "dire" 5 a.m. call from a tenant whose "chimney was falling in" and who later showed him where one brick had dropped out; the basement that a child had flooded with a garden hose.

"With tenants, it's mostly a question of mazel-luck," he said. "Sometimes you get good ones-and then you do anything to make them stay. Some people's rent I haven't raised over 6 percent in five years. But when you get a lemon, it can be hell. After a while, you do tend to get hardened." One moment, Mr.

Fisher is angrily waving a sheaf of bills for replacing broken windows, and the next he is recalling a time he drove some elderly tenants downtown to fill out forms for a utility tax rebate. And threaded through his conversation is a clear concern for the difficulties of families who subsist on government help, who must "eat beans for dinner and stretch each dollar a hundred ways. The average welfare check wouldn't support a Great Dane." While many inner-city landlords complain they can't keep their property in repair and still make ends meet-a claim city tenant advocates bitterly dispute -Mr. Fisher thinks tenants do need "protection" from unscrupulous landlords, and that being able to locate them for repairs should be a "right, not a privilege, even if they do abuse it." What makes a bad landlord? "Lack of empathy," he said firmly. "Some people who become successful simply forget how it is down there, but I can't.

Mr. Fisher leads a visitor through his living room, decorated with thick rugs and Oriental art, and out onto the wide porch surrounded by bright autumn woods. "I'm a landlord, and obviously it's easy to contrast all this with what I rent," he said. "I don't have all the answers, but I do realize how fortunate I am. I remember what it is to struggle.

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