Last month, the sorry state of the West Baltimore MARC station, which serves 850 daily commuters, was the subject of a Brew story.

The stairs on the northbound platform were so rust-riddled you could see through them.

The concrete slab step from the parking lot to the sidewalk that takes early-morning travelers to the south (or Washington bound) platform had become so undermined that it seemed in danger of slumping into the earth – or onto busy Franklin Street.

We were struck by the irony of such poor repair when MARC and Amtrak had been touting in press releases the completion of their $1 million renovation of bathrooms at Pennsylvania Station in North Baltimore – and MARC’s latest “Growth and Investment Plan” report stressed “maintain a state of good repair” as one of the system’s major accomplishments.

Hence our headline, “A tale of two train stations.”

A visit last Friday to West Baltimore showed that MARC has made some patchwork improvements.

The four corroded risers on the staircase had been replaced by metal strips. No more peekaboo holes. But the staircase, which drops sharply from the elevated northbound tracks to street level, was still a mess of flaking rust and crumbling concrete.

MARC spokesman Paul Shepard told us last month that the staircase was considered “safe,” but that repairs were planned.

In follow-up today, Shepard told us that the project is “in progress,” but could provide no other details.

But the other steps we noticed, those concrete ones with severe erosion along Franklin Street, appeared as decrepit on Friday as they were a month ago.

Shepard promised repairs there soon. “Engineering tells us they expect that project to be completed in less than one month from now,” he said in an email.

In the meantime, a few wheelbarrow-loads of fill pushed into the gaping hole would appear to be a simple expedient.