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Railroad buff derailed again; 26th bust for man cops say impersonated fed (The following story by Pete Donohue appeared on the New York Daily News website on October 7.) NEW YORK — A train buff with a long track record - that includes taking a subway train for a joyride - has been arrested for impersonating a federal agent, police said Monday. Darius McCollum, 43, flashed a bogus badge and a forged ID card to a Long Island Rail Road conductor after boarding a train in Penn Station on Sunday night, Metropolitan Transportation Authority police said. Prior to Sunday, McCollum had been arrested 25 times for pretending to be a transit worker. "I'm not surprised," McCollum's weary-sounding mother, Elizabeth, said of the latest arrest after being reached Monday in North Carolina. McCollum in recent years has been living in North Carolina, but he ignored his mother's warnings and took a bus back to the city Sunday, she said. "He's a lover of New York and can't get over it," she said. McCollum's first run-in with the law came in 1981, when he assumed the role - and duties - of a subway motorman. He drove an E train full of unsuspecting passengers from 34th St. to the World Trade Center. He was 15 years old. McCollum bounced in and out of jail for a series of lesser stunts until his 2004 arrest in a Queens railyard. He had a handful of stolen railroad keys and said he wanted to learn how to drive one of the new commuter trains, authorities said. The Queens arrest resulted in a state prison stint for McCollum, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. He was paroled in 2006 but was sent back for violating the terms of his freedom. Several months ago, the NYPD stopped McCollum as he tried to enter a restricted area of the Columbus Circle station. He was wearing a blue T-shirt and blue work pants typically worn by track workers, as well as a hardhat and gloves bearing the NYC Transit logo. That netted him a five-day sentence. On Sunday, a conductor recognized him from a "be-on-the-lookout" bulletin posted by MTA police, officials said. When approached by the conductor, McCollum showed the badge and bogus "National Justice Bureau" ID card, officials said. The train crew notified MTA police officers, who arrested McCollum at the Babylon station in Suffolk County. His mother complained that authorities are "picking on him, not trying to help him." "If he wears dark clothes, they pick him up," she said. "Anytime he goes on a train, it's going to happen." Tuesday, October 07, 2008 © 1997-2010 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen

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