Amtrak - Post 3/11

But you have to remeber to that to get the amount of devestation you are looking at in Madrid they would have to hit something with alot more people per area then you normal packed Highway.

Chris

I brought up this very point back MONTHS ago about rail safety

someone said that an attack on rail infrastructure would have very little impact on society as a whole

I think this spain incident shows that to be complete BS...

mattfels wrote:something I found interesting: Eurostar screens its pax, but TGV doesn't.

That's because Eurostar travels between the UK and France/Belgium. While I'm not 100% sure of how the European Union works, I think passengers traveling between the UK and "the continent" get screened for immigration. Traveling between countries on the continent (at least, EU countries) is pretty much unrestricted.

When I rode Eurostar last summer, Paris-London, the check was an immigration check, and not a "security" check per se.

NellieBly wrote:Even at airports, I question the effectiveness of the screening process. I've taken my shoes off for the security checkers dozens of times -- despite the fact that, in more than 500 flights over the last 15 years, I've not tried to hijack a plane or threaten anyone.

We need to think harder about how better to identify suspicious persons, and we need to stop treating paying passengers like criminals.

Are you suggesting only those that have tried to hijack planes be subjected to security screening?

Re: Ken W2KB

Even on the NEC, Amtrak is the lesser target (unless you're talking about property destruction). As I stated earlier, commuter trains’ greater passenger loads and relative ease of boarding make them the more fertile ground for terror.

Your mention of WWII safeguarding measures is apt. Soldiers along ROWs were trained to guard against what was then referred to as “enemy acts of espionage,” a phrase that in modern times translates easily into “terrorism.” In many ways, that's exactly what the National Guard is doing. But without the Draft, the level of vigilance seen in WWII ain’t gonna happen today.

for the Eurotrains i think there is also the problem of stopping the spread of rabies from mainland europe to Britain .
I would think that subways / commuter lines would be bigger targets than amtrak , so i dont think riders of amtrak should be unduly concerned .

stilson4283 wrote:But you have to remeber to that to get the amount of devestation you are looking at in Madrid they would have to hit something with alot more people per area then you normal packed Highway

That would be so easy to do, far easier than with a railroad with increased security, let's say. All it takes is one or two suicide bombers with trucks. And if it's done in a road tunnel? You wouldn't have 1200 injuries but 1200 deaths at the very least. On a highway bridge like the NJ Turnpike between Kearny and Secaucus? There are ways indeed to achieve the "people per area", and no way to secure it—the railroads could be secured by contrast, however, and even if you had to line up at every railroad station (which would be far less of an inconvenience than it appears at face value), what could you do on a highway to prevent such a thing from happening?

For long distance trains, an inspection line of sorts might be feasible. For commuter trains, it is impractical. Most NJT commuter stations, for instance are unfenced, unmanned, and passengers loaded along a long platform. At a minimum it would add a lot of time to the trip, and would require hiring literally hundreds of additonal security employees.

2 words: coordinated attack.

Four different trains were involved. Does the number 4 ring a bell from a certain event that happened 911 days prior? Here are 2 more key words: rush hour. Disable 4 freeway bridges at rush hour and yes, there would be comparable if not greater loss of life. So please, let's spin no more cross-mode safety comparisons.

An article in Today's New York Times Week in Review refers to the Madrid incident as 11-M; I had seen 3/11 used as a title of a Wall Street Journal editorial.

But it is safe to say that the tragic incident will have a universally adopted shorthand title such as 9/11 has become.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned one step that can be taken that would significantly improve security on crowded station platforms. Have security officers walking around the crowd with bomb sniffing dogs. That would discourage bombs in backacks with minimal disruption to the flow of people.

intrestingly this forum has the day first on the left hand side , and the month first under the subject headings

Here is a nice artical this morning on Yahoo.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... 2&ncid=716


"First of all, we've invested $115 million in grants to the transit and rail industry," said Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary of homeland security.

Oh ok, I think EACH airline got that much.

Chris

The average was just over $10 million (427 carriers, $4.7 billion), but the major carriers got WAY more than $115 million each.

America West: $116 million
American: $694 million (plus another $144 million for TWA)
Continental: $361 million
Delta: $636 million
Northwest: $428 million
Southwest: $283 million
United: $774 million
US Airways: $307 million

That's just the direct cash paid out in phase I of the Air Transportation Stabilization Act. Even the "airline" Fedex got $101 million. UPS got $81 million.

http://www.dot.gov/affairs/carrierpayments.htm

Apples to apples, please.

ATSSA's $4.7B was corporate bail-out money. Flying gravy for a week's grounding. None of that went to increase airline security, as the $115M in Homeland Security grants is purported to do for the fuzzily-defined "transit and rail industry."

Let's ground Amtrak for a week, and see what the Feds come up with for compensation. Then again, let's not.