What happens when a train crosses the US/Canada border, or the US/Mexico border? Is there a full inspection? Bomb smelling dogs? Radiation detection?
About 12 years ago, we rode the Amtrak Adirondack from Albany-Rensselaer [sp?] to Montreal. Stopped at the border for about 45 mins. for Canadian Customs to come through and examine everyone’s papers and ask a few questions. [Real serious dudes, too, like Mounties; made the dozing U.S. Customs guys at Bar Harbor, Maine 2 weeks later look like a Mayberry R.F.D. joke - no wonder that’s how some of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists entered the U.S.] They took 2 young women off the train - speculation was that they were being smuggled in for ‘immoral purposes’, as there was quite a bit of that in the Canadian news at the time.
- Paul North.
Any combination or all of the above.
Profile scanning, checking of manifests, checking of waybills and consist information, background / NCIC checks against the crew, checking against the national security databases, all sorts of stuff.
X-ray, infrared, radiation detectors, all sorts of different tools in their bag of tricks
We heard US customs give CN trains clearance as they came through the Port Huron Michigan tunnel.Trains were also stopped at the yard before they proceeded.They also had a friendly local policeman driving around the area from time to time.
stay safe
joe
Yes, Paul, you got that Dutch name right, but I think that you stopped at Cantic (junction with the line down to Alburg), and not at the border for Customs.
I think that my wife and I have been profiled for border crossings by rail. This past spring, we barely paused at Canadian customs in the Vancouver station (that my wife uses a walker got us to the head of the line), and when we came back into the States at Rouses Point, the inspectors looked at our passports and did not even ask for our customs declaration. However, it took them quite a while to clear the entire train. We have known some passengers to be queried at length, especially if they are from another country.
It was far worse when we had to fly to Baton Rouge last December; it had been several years since either one of had flown anywhere, and suspicion also may have been aroused when we made reservations on Friday for a trip that began Sunday morning and ended Tuesday night. I missed having my pocketknife in my pocket (I left it at home).
Johnny.
I was on a few CP Rail freights in the 2003 that required us to cross the border from Canada into the USA. (Buffalo, NY). Before you could make a trip into the USA, CP would submit your name and credentials to the US border service to be checked out. Then you would have to take a rules course to obtain a CSX rules card for operation on their territory in the USA. Once that was done, you were qualified for train operation in the United States.
As for actually taking the freight train over the border, the US customs service would already have all your bills and paperwork as you were leaving your home terminal. They knew we were coming and what we had.
We would then stop in Welland, Ontario to call the CSX Dispatcher to let them know we would be at the border shortly and also to pick to up the CSX Daily Operating Bulletin along with any other paperwork that pretained to our train and their territory.
Upon arrival at the border, we would call the US Customs Service on the radio (they monitored the main line channel), and give them our train id, number of cars, number of loads and number of empties, etc. Their truck would be parked beside the tracks on the USA side and we would run by them at 5 mph while the agents did a rolling inspection. After the train cleared the agents, they would call us on the radio and tell us “OK to proceed” or “Stop your train”.
Once you received your clearance from the Customs Inspectors, we were on our way to the CSX freight yard in Buffalo, NY. This would entail traveling on the CSX mainline for about 8 miles and then waiting our turn to enter the yard. Once in the yard we were under the jurisdiction of the CSX Yardmaster and they may just have us cut our train off and put the power to the Shop Track or we could be making a few moves in the yard before going to the Shop.
I have not brought a train over since 2003, but apparently now trains are also is electronically scanned (X-ra
A while ago I read an article on scanning cargo ships entering port for radioactivity. The trouble is there are way too many false positives. The kind of radioactivity they are looking for (bombs, etc.) is always screened somewhat by its packaging. But other cargoes, entirely innocent, can trigger the scanners. For instance, bananas. They contain potassium, as any dieter knows. Potassium is mildly radioactive but it emits a particle that is very easily detected by scanners. So every ship from Central America with a cargo of bananas sets off the scanners big time. Must be fun for all concerned.
Jack
Anybody who tries to enter the United States illegally from Canada by trying to hide on a freight train while it crosses the border will find out in a hurry how well the scanner will work when used for that purpose.
That’s most likely correct - it was in late Sept. 1997, in case it might have been moved since then. I was using the term ‘‘the border’’ loosely, since I didn’t really know exactly where we were - it was a dark, rainy afternoon, I was pretty tired, and once we got away from the shore of Lake Champlain, I didn’t notice any station signs or have any other way of recognizing where we were - that flat area north of the Lake looks pretty much the same all the way to the suburbs of Montreal. But the Canadian Customs guys were serious hombres, no doubt about that.
- Paul North.
I noticed when I came through US Customs near Warroad Minnesota a CN freight crossed the border without stopping even though its speed was about 10 miles an hour. I followed the freight from Warroad to Baudette Minnesota on Minnesota highway 11 which runs along side the CN tracks. The freight ran about 50MPH. I could see the railroad bridge crossing into Canada when I arrived in Baudette and the train was not even slowing down as it re-entered Canada.
Way back in the day, there used to be a couple of overnight CP passenger trains from Quebec Province - Montreal and/ or Quebec City - to St. John, New Brunswick, as I recall. A good portion of the route was through the woods of northern Maine. My understanding is that the doors on the passenger cars would be ‘sealed’ by one or both nations’ Customs agents at the border into the U.S., and monitored and checked at the border out of the U.S. Perhaps someone here can provide more details.
Also, several months ago someone here asked about a ‘Wilgus Memorandum’ or agreement or ‘Protocol’ relating to equipment - esp. locomotives - crossing the border. The most I could find out about it at the time or was posted is that Memo related to agreeing to not assess taxes or customs duties on the equipment as an ‘import’ as long as it was turned around and left promptly, etc. I believe that Wilgus was not some diplomat, but William Wilgus, a vice-president of the New York Central, as NYC would have encountered that problem with its Canada Southern subsidiary across the southern tier of Ontario from Detroit to Buffalo - see the current thread on the CASO for more on it - as well as perhaps at other locations.
- Paul North.
Paul, according to the timetable, Cantic is the stop for Canadian customs. The train stopped there where I made my first trip to Montreal, in 1984, on the Montrealer. I had checked one of my bags, so I had to go through customs again, in Central Station in Montreal.
Two years ago, when we were entering Canada, I was glad that one inspector was tough. A little boy sitting behind my wife was quite unhappy, and he would kick the seat of her back from time to time. I, sad to say, had been at a loss as to what to say to his mother, who was sitting behind me (two other children, in another double seat, were well-behaved). The inspector told the mother and boy that they would have to move to another seat.
I do not recall anything especially from our passage through Cantic twenty years ago, nor from our passage through Niagara Falls six years ago. Perhaps we are considered innocuous? We went through customs at Vancouver quickly twenty years and again this year. Have we been profiled?
We will never forget the one question asked when we came back into the States at Port Huron twenty years ago: "You
The same may have applied, to a certain extent, on the NYC trains between Buffalo and Detroit. In 1969, I rode what was left of the Wolverine from New York to Chicago, and stepped off the train in Windsor. I was immediately told to get back on, since we were in a foreign country.
Johnny