TSA Screens Train Passengers After Getting Off Train

I hope that we can just chalk this one up to a "mistake." Passengers arriving on an Amtrak train in Savannah, Georgia on February 13 were screened by TSA agents after they got off the train.

One passenger described things this way: "There were about 14 agents pulling people inside the building and corraling everyone in a roped area after you got off the train. This made no sense! Poor family in front of us! Nine-year old getting patted down and wanded. They groped our people too and were very unprofessional. I am all about security, but when have you ever been harassed and felt up getting off a plane? Shouldn’t they be doing that getting on? And they wonder why so many people are mad at them."

This search was conducted under TSA's VIPR program, which also includes screening of passengers boarding buses. VIPR stands for Visual Intermodal Protection and Response. Yes, you might be patted down and searched before getting on a Greyhound bus.

The screening was as thorough as pre-airline boarding screenings, as you can see in the video below, and included emptying passengers' bags and frisking passengers.

Still Life with Robin: Something to Rail About

by Peggy Robin

I’m typing this column on my netbook in the “quiet car” on the train on the way to New York. I’ll be there in under three hours, but I expect to write just part of this column now and resume writing the second part on the trip back. To occupy myself when not writing, I have downloaded two movies, and have brought along two books and a magazine. That way, if I start a book or a movie and don’t like it much, or just feel in the mood for something else, I can switch. Yes, I know if I had an iPad or a Kindle I would not have to haul anything along but would have thousands upon thousands of choices of entertainment at my disposal, just a few simple clicks away. I ponder on that each time I get ready for a trip. One day I’ll bite. But right now I’m satisfied with my reading/viewing arrangements.

Right now the train is a few minutes out from Union Station. I’m on the 2pm Acela, scheduled to arrive in Penn Station a little before 5pm. Normally, for a trip to New York, I would take the Bolt Bus or one of the other $25-and-under bus lines that I have praised before in this space (see: http://bit.ly/dRwswz). This time I am on a very tight schedule, both going and coming back, and can’t risk being late if the four-and-a-half- hour bus ride should stretch to five or six hours due to traffic. I have little choice but to shell out the exorbitant charge of $135 for the train up and then $186 for the ride back, for a total of $321.  If that makes me hypercritical of what I get for my money, so be it.

Fifteen minutes along and a man in the quiet car answers his cell phone and begins to talk in a very loud voice. He’s yakking away, but then someone must have spoken to him (yay for them!) because he shouts into the mouthpiece, “Hey, I’m in the quiet car so I gotta move.” He walks out to the vestibule between this car and the next, where the doors stay open if there’s any movement within range of the sensor. He’s still talking very loudly, so that everyone in the quiet car can hear his every word.

Amtrak Security Theater

There was a time when airline counter personnel asked passengers if they had their luggage under their full control all the time. Many people didn't (the luggage was left with the hotel for a while, for example), but everyone said "yes," lest they be subject to additional screening. It took years before this question was done away with, but for a decade or so, the question asked of all passengers was mere airline security theater -- worthless.

Enter Amtrak security theater. If you've taken a train lately in the east, you've heard the announcement that says that passengers may be subject to random identification checks under the authority of the Transportation Security Administration. These checks take place on the train, after the train has left the station. Checking passengers' IDs once they've boarded the train is worse than worthless: It's dangerous.

Here's why: Let's say you're a terrorist. An unarmed conductor asks for your ID. What do you do? You set off the bomb.

Once passengers are on the train, it's too late to check IDs.

And what if you're not a bad guy, but happen not to have your ID? Will they stop the train between Wilmington and Philadelphia and put you off the train? Or make you get off at the next stop, presumably under the threat of arrest?

Checking IDs might help ensure that the person who paid for the non-transferable ticket is the person using it. Oh, now I understand: Random ID checks have nothing to do with security, and everything to do with revenue, under the guise of making us more secure.

High Speed DC to Boston Train Proposed for 2040 but More Rain Wednesday

It may not be finished until 2040, but Amtrak has unveiled plans for ultra-high speed trains along the east coast. As Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell said, "No one should take a plane for a trip shorter than 500 miles."  I'd be happy to forgo my frequent flyer miles for the proposed 220 mile per hour train system.

Such a train system, linking the major eastern cities of Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston would cost $117 billion to build in 2010 dollars. DC to New York in an hour and a half; DC to Boson in less than three hours. Not bad at all, especially since it can take that long just to drive around the Beltway.

Meanwhile, back on earth, Wednesday is going to bring a 40 percent chance of rain with a high of 74 degrees. On Thursday, we're back to duck weather:  There's a hundred percent chance of rain.