Next stop for a bus & train thief

THE LAST STOP for serial transit thief Darius McCollum will be an insane asylum if prosecutors have anything to say about it.

McCollum, who pleaded guilty this year to stealing an empty Greyhound bus due to mental disease, testified Wednesday in a hearing to determine whether he is so dangerously ill that he needs to be institutionalized. Now 52, he has been arrested more than 30 times since he was 15 for criminally impersonating MTA, Metro-North, LIRR, Greyhound and Trailways bus drivers and train operators.

McCollum’s attorney, Sally Butler, is advocating for her longtime client to be released into the community and live in a halfway house that provides mental health services.

If Justice Ruth Shillingford agrees with prosecutors and parks him permanently, it will be an ironic ending for a man obsessed with iron, steel and chrome conveyances.

“The wheels go round and round. I’m fascinated with the whole system,” McCollum said. He added he was 12 or 13 when he started to cut school and head to the train yards to learn how to operate locomotives.

He went to a Hoboken depot during a November 2015 snowstorm, where prosecutors said McCollum put riders’ lives at risk. But McCollum, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome and autism, said he thought he was helping.

“At the time, they were short-staffed and I was acting in the matter I represented,” he said in response to questions from Assistant District Attorney Janet Gleeson.

“Do you believe you were risking the lives of the passengers driving in inclement weather without training or a license?” asked Gleeson.

“Yes,” replied McCollum who admitted to illegally taking over transit thousands of times — sometimes in a uniform given to him as a gift by a retired employee.

McCollum operated MTA trains 5,000 times and conducted the LIRR Babylon line fewer than 1,000. He took a “couple hundred” illegal trips on Metro-North and 120 on Amtrak.

“My longest trip was from Greensboro, N.C., to Penn Station,” said McCollum, who wasn’t sure if passengers were onboard the 10-hour trip.

During his snowstorm ride, he was concerned with getting passengers to their destinations in the bad weather and had to “convince” himself to get behind the wheel.

Shillingford will determine at a later date where McCollum will land.