I’m writing a mystery novel where an albanian gang smuggle large ammounts of women into the fictional city of Malkin. This city has no harbor or airport. The bring them in and sell them. They bring them with trains. For that they have people inside the union and some workers, the trip is like from Boston to Albany:
Does the cargo get inspected? How often?
How long would the ride be?
Does AMTRAK take care of cargo (like furniture or boxes)
How are cargo containers labeled, is there a specific code?
Sorry for my english, I write in spanish.
On a side note, my grandfather scaped the war in germany, went to the US by boat, didn’t sign in, so he was illegal inmigrant, loved trains so much he lived a couple of years on trains, he then took one to mexico city, was educated as an engineer, worked in trains his whole life. Unfortunately he passed away and can’t ask him
If the trip is entirely inside one country, no one inspects cargo unless the authorities have reason to believe that something illegal is going on. If the cargo crosses a border then Customs might inspect for contraband.
In a high speed passenger train, about five hours. An American freight might take more than twelve hours, but European freight schedules are faster. I suggest you look at a public timetable covering Albanian rail traffic, select two points an equivalent distance apart, then add some time for terminal loading and unloading.
I believe that Amtrak only handles passenger luggage, and that may move on a different train. A parcel big enough to hold a person would probably attract attention, especially if it started bouncing around and making noise.
If you are referring to individual boxes inside a closed car (or standard shipping container) they are labeled as to content but usually not individually coded. The standard (8x8x20 or larger) shipping container has reporting marks identifying the owner, but usually nothing on the outside indicating contents. That information would be found on separate paperwork. Since nobody really checks, the waybill might specify canned vegetables but the boxes might contain designer clothing.
Oh yeah - I’ll help you !!! That’s exactly the sort of stories I like ! Especially since unfortunately it’s not so much fiction as it is actual crime , and one of the most brutal and damnable of crimes since it builds money making on captivating , degrading , misusing , raping human individuals , i e women and breaking their personalities by exposing them to extreme violence and sadistic play with fear of death - a ‘charming’ topic indeed . I propose you get your inspiration by checking for cities like Odessa / Black Sea from where such abducted women are being concentrated before being shipped across the sea in suiting tranches . The slave dealers transport them through East Anatolia , Turkey , to sell them in bordering countries to men who for reasons obvious would be at loss to persuade any woman at a minimum of her common sense to try and risk a life with them . Reason why this sort of business , in contrast to what might be expected , seems to have no end nor limit neither in cruelty nor in quantity simply is because of the appalling rate of ‘consumtion’ or ‘wastage’ or ‘wear-out rate’ of women having to endure such terrible fates , or more clearly : they usually don’t survive it for very long and they are not supposed to .
On a site by an organization for displaced women I had read a report by one woman , Natalya I think was her name , who had managed to survive this ordeal , off hands here’s a brief summary of her incredible odyssey :
A daughter of a poor farmer in Moldavia she heard news by a friend about chances for well payed jobs in Odessa - she made it to Odessa partly by lift on horse carriage , partly travelling by train without a ticket , partly by hiking . In Odessa she was contacted by a man who claimed being an agent of a private enterprise job center , she was soon being told presently there were no vacancies in Odessa but
Although it has happened that people have been smuggled in shipping containers, I think it’s relatively rare. I recall one attempt to bring illegal immigrants into the US where most if not all of the people in the container died from lack of oxygen, as the containers are pretty much airtight.
I’d think in a move like you’re thinking of writing about, it would be a lot more logical for the move to be made by truck. They’d have to load the container in a secret location, then get a truck to haul it to a rail yard, then get it loaded onto a railcar, then reverse the process later at the destination. Conversely, you could do the same trip by truck in a matter of hours, and not have the risks you’d have shipping by rail.
p.s. as noted, Amtrak doesn’t really handle express like packages, except for some sealed cars of mail in special cars. I don’t think anyone would be able to smuggle women in those cars.
Smuggling people inside shipping containers is a lot more common than you think. One concern about using radiation (1 t0 9 MeV photons or neutrons) for scanning cargo containers is what happens if people are inside the container?