....March 4, 1:12 AM
	Train-Theft Buff Back To Jail: Queens train fanatic Darius McCollum is heading back to prison for 1½ to 3 years, after he pleaded guilty to trying to steal an M-7 locomotive from the Long Island Railroad Yards on Liberty Avenue last June. This is the 20th conviction for the McCollum related to impersonating transit workers or stealing subway trains or buses, authorities said. Prosecutors said McCollum entered the train in June 2004 wearing a transit-issued helmet and orange reflector vest. He produced a card identifying himself as a safety consultant and started questioning workers on how to operate the train, prosecutors said. The workers became suspicious, prompting McCollum to start walking out of the yard. He was arrested a short while later by MTA police, who found several keys in his possession including one key that would have started the M-7 locomotive, prosecutors said. McCollum was released from prison in April 2002, after serving a stint for posing as a transit worker and breaking into a subway control room. At age 15 in 1981, McCollum was arrested for the first time-after a motorman who was “his friend” allowed him to take the controls of an E train. [ More Blotters]