By all rules and regulations and incantations of the Big Brotherhood of Homeland Security the cities of Bloomfield, East Orange and Newark, New Jersey should have been shut down if not evacuated in mid afternoon of last Monday. All NJT Hoboken Division trains, all Newark City Subway (Newark Light Rail) should have been shut down; all traffic stopped, schools let out, and airplanes heading for Newark, Morristown and Teteboro airports rerouted or grounded. According to the laws laid down and according to about 25% of the pictures and posters seen at all railroad and light rail stations as well as inside every passenger car, if one finds an unattended bag NJT Police and others are to be notified and proper precautions taken. It was on Monday that a friend and I were riding the Newark City Subway from Newark Penn Station to Grove Street with a stop over at Branch Brook Park Station enroute. Upon boarding the second LRV out of Branch Brook Park Station we discovered my friend no longer had his small black canvas bag containing two digital cameras. It was left either on the last car we rode or on a bench on the station platform. The motorman of our car, when informed of the problem upon our arrival at Grove St. station phoned Branch Brook Park security who searched but found no bag or cameras. We were given a phone number for Lost and Found which was called an the item reported lost. When we returned to Newark Penn Station we also reported the incident to NJT Customer Service where an “incident report” was made and filed. Either nobody found the bag and camera. Yet. Or if they did the whole program of alterness and procedures being advertised in the name of Homeland Security is a sham. Of course we know now that the bag did not contain any explosives, etc. because nothing has happened.
Someone braver that Homeland Security has two new cameras.
My condolences.
I bet that bag wasn’t unattended for more than about 10 seconds…
Close…12 and a half by my calculatons. I fear our having the motorman/operator calling back to the station actually got it lifted…nobody saw it until we called and pointed it out! So much for the Homeland. And so much for Security! I just found the whole incident hilarious in view of the advertising cards, the notes in the time tables, the bally hoo from the policing agencies. I bet if we had pulled one of the cameras out of the bag and tried to take a picture we would have been swarmed over by an army with a foot holding our necks on the rails and guns pointed at our heads telling us how vile,unpatriotic, and suspicious we were!
Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the bomb squad had already blown it up just in case.
If they had, it would have been all over the 5 O’Clock News - big story about the heroic defense of the transit system…
Homeland Security should be glad I’m a retired sergeant. If I was a terrorist, knowing what I know, they might have some problems. Railroad infrastructure is armored in tissue paper.
Chuck
My condolences to you friend for the loss of t two cameras, it sucks the very instant you realize the doors are closed and the train is moving, and you can see the bag sitting there and nothing you can do about it.
That very instant you know beyond any shadow of a doubt they are gone…
Homeland Security, well, the first part of the name is right.
Deal with them almost on a daily basis, totally clueless about railroads, what we do, why and how.
Just number crunchers is sportswear and windbreakers…
Railroads aren’t the problem…people are!
Precisely