I was wondering how many people think the Goverment is or should think more about using rail service more since the latest terror plot was uncovered ?I for one think they better put more funding out there for it !The airlines are gonna go belly up if this keeps up.[2c]
Actually the trains have been bombed much more than airlines -London,Madrid, India, Japan, and others . Some even more than once. Bombing and shutting down trains in the US would only be effective in NYC, Chicago, Wash DC etc.
Good point. An Amtrak foe could turn the argument on its head by saying that by shutting it down the U.S. would be getting rid of the less secure form of transportation.
Not the same continent, but I’ve just heard on BBC news that Eurostar (London - Paris/Brussels high speed train service) has taken 15000 extra bookings since yesterday…
Yes, there have been train bombings, but trains are intrinsically safer than planes - they don’t fall out of the sky and kill everyone on board when a bomb goes off (unless you are extremely lucky).
If a bomb explodes on a train, the people in the immediate vicinity are likely to be killed or injured, but otherwise it’s like a normal train accident - the train probably derails, if you’re unlucky another one might collide with it, but generally most people survive - modern rolling stock is usually quite good on ‘crashworthiness’.
In the Madrid bombings 191 people were killed, but that was from 10 bombs spread across four, 6-car-length trains at busy commuting time - so there could have been upwards of 400 people on each train, which suggests most people on those trains survived the attacks (although many would have been injured to some extent).
Tony
I have not seen any evidence of increased RR security out west - but you better believe that everyone associated with RR security has their eyes open wider. Keep your eyes open as well.
dd