By The River

"While it is necessary, it is no longer sufficient to protect ourselves against known or suspected terrorists; we must protect ourselves against people with no known affiliation to terrorism."
--Kip Hawley, administrator of U.S. Transportation Security Administration, in remarks to Congress about rail security, Oct. 20, 2005.

Amtrak announced today that it will conduct unannounced spot checks of boarding passengers and their carry-on luggage as part of the war against terrorism. While greater attention to rail security is long overdue--the rail unions have been vocal about this since 2001--the unique nature of rail travel is likely to make anyone chosen for a spot check feel like the unluckiest man or woman alive.

Here's how the AP described what will be done: "The [security] teams will show up unannounced at stations and set up baggage screening areas in front of boarding gates. Officers will randomly pull people out of line and wipe their bags with a special swab that is then put through a machine that detects explosives. If the machine detects anything, officers will open the bag for a visual inspection. Anybody who is selected for screening and refuses will not be allowed to board and their ticket will be refunded."

If you're not a regular Amtrak rider between Harrisburg and Philadelphia and New York, this might seem no more onerous than what airline passengers endure every day. But there's a big difference. Very few Amtrak passengers, and none on the trains between Harrisburg and Philadelphia and New York, have assigned seats. It's mostly open seating.

So while you wait for the explosives test to be conducted, the majority of passengers not chosen for spot checks will be boarding the train and grabbing most of the seats. On a busy travel day, you and your wife, or you and your wife and two children, may end up sitting far apart because only widely scattered single seats--possibly on different cars--are left. You may be dragging your luggage from car to car searching for those seats.

This won't be much of a problem for riders boarding in Harrisburg, where the trains originate and there is always plenty of seating. But it will be a problem when you get on the return train in New York's Penn Station, which on the best of days is a scene of barely organized chaos. Here's how it works in Penn Station: passengers for all the trains mill about in the waiting room, watching the train board intently for the gate to be announced for their train--it's always different. They then rush to that gate and crowd down a narrow escalator to the train platform.

It is hard to imagine where in the Penn Station waiting area these screenings could be done. My guess is they will do them on the platforms, where there is somewhat more ability to control the flow of people. Amtrak hasn't said whether trains will be delayed so screened passengers have time to board. The next train could be hours away. If you are forced to miss the last train of the night, who pays for your hotel and meals? Take a guess.

Anyone who thinks their status as a nice, white, middle class family on a weekend jaunt to New York will exempt them from these security screenings should re-read the quote that begins this post. But can you imagine how that family is going to feel if they are hauled out of line for screening, and then forced to sit in widely scattered seats, while someone who looks vaguely Middle Eastern goes on their merry way? Profiling, while unpleasant, is likely to catch more real terrorists than pretending an elderly white or African-American grandmother could be a human bomb.

The security problem is real. Imagine a suitcase bomb exploding in an Amtrak train as it passes under the Hudson River on the last leg of its journey to Penn Station. But this isn't the solution. Determined terrorists could arrange for their suicide bombers to get on the train at whistle-stop stations like Mt. Joy or Parkesburg that are unlikely to be visited by the screeners. Or have one bomber get on at one small station--there are nine of them between Harrisburg and Philadelphia--and one at another, knowing it was unlikely they would both be checked. Or for real, guaranteed impact, have the suicide bomber detonate in the crowded Penn Station waiting area. It is a nearly unsolvable problem.

One almost wonders if this is a back-handed attempt by the Bush Administration to destroy Amtrak by cutting not its appropriations--which it tries to do every year, while Congress puts the dollars back--but its supply of passengers willing to ride the trains. No business traveler or vacationing family who is seriously delayed or inconvenienced by a spot check is likely to ride Amtrak again, if there are alternatives. No one of questionable immigration status is going to risk being detected by the spot checkers, either.

A better solution, and one which Amtrak says it will employ in tandem with the spot checks, is to have more uniformed security in the stations--Penn Station has plenty of this already--and on the trains, accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs.