It turned out to be a classic runaround. The Amtrak Police apparently misled the public affairs office. According to state Medical Examiner David Fowler -- the chief himself, not a flunky -- it is illegal for his office to provide that information. According to Fowler, it is the job of the police to provide identifications of victims to the public -- an assertion that squares with the practice of other police departments in Maryland.

Checking back with Amtrak, spokesman Steve Kulm professed ignorance of that practice. He said it was Amtrak police policy not to identify the dead in such cases. He said he'd check back, but as of the close of business Wednesday, he said: "I'll tell you honestly I'm not hopeful."

The flaw in Amtrak's "policy" is that there's a real dead person here. He may have been a trespasser, he may have been a vagrant, he may have been a drunk, but he had a name and somewhere he had a family.

Amtrak, of course, doesn't like trespassers  on its tracks. Perhaps the railroad prefers that when they are struck by its trains they die in anonymity, so that nobody can look into their stories and perhaps portray them as individuals with humanity. Because of the short attention span of the media, the railroad can usually count on reporters to go away after a few days.

My question is why the government would give Amtrak Police the power to investigate fatal accidents but not require the department to meet the minimal disclosure standards followed by other police agencies. Amtrak, it should be recalled, is heavily supported with taxpayer dollars -- something its police force must have forgotten.