Homeland (Un)Security Reveals Plan For U.S. Rail Lines, page 1
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Topic started on 15-12-2006 @ 06:15 PM by gimmefootball400
WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security on Friday unveiled a plan to tighten security on the nation’s rail system. But the proposal was criticized even before it was released by Democratic lawmakers, who said it was too little, too late.

The Homeland Security proposal would require freight and passenger rail systems to inspect rail cars and keep them in secure areas when not in use. They also would tighten surveillance of rail cars carrying toxic substances in “high threat urban areas.”
www.msnbc.com


It has been revealed today that the Department of Homeland Security has plans to tighten security on the railroads here in the United States. This plan should have been created and put into place years ago. The plan calls for monitoring of all rail cars, both freight and passenger, when the cars are not being used in revenue service. Supposedly, this will help cut down the risk of a terrorist attack on the railroads. I say :swearin other words, bull----) to that reason and the other reasons given. For some reason, I do not see this plan having any juice to it.

That is, for one, there are thousands of miles of rail line, both freight and passenger, that are to be monitored. With the way that this government is being ran nowadays, it would be nearly impossible to montior thousands upon thousands of miles of trackage to monitor at one time. The number of people and machines for this to be successful would be enormous. That is just the beginning of it though.

Not only do you have thousands of miles of track to look over, but you also have thousands upon thousands of rolling stock, locomotives, and employees that you would have to supervise with even more emphasis on what [b/can and can't be done. For example, your Road Master, the guy in charge of the line that you are on, gives you a particular place to take a car. Then he or she will tell you what to do with that car and how it should be done. They will also tell you what you can and cannot say about the car and its load.

This also means that monitoring of the railroads will be more strict as this plan further develops. As for what this means for railfans, like me, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Forced Rerouting of Hazardous Materials?

Just a little over two years ago, the City of Washington D. C. actually banned trains carry hazardous cargo from coming within 2.2 miles of the city limits. This in turn caused, more hazardous materials to be shipped on lines that wouldn't normally see an influx of haz-mat traffic. This measure is what got the City of Washington sued by CSX Transportation based out of Chesapeake, Virginia. The reason why CSX sued the city government there was because Washington, D. C. is a main thoroughfare for haz-mat traffic coming to and from the Northeast.

CSX, along with other major carriers, feared that other cities impose such action like what Washington, D. C. has enacted. The suit against the City of Washington is still pending in the court system. If other cities enact such legislation as this, it could have an adverse affect on the way the railroads handle and or if they would ship hazardous materials again. I say let them send the stuff through. I know accidents and sabotage happens, but that is something that most people, and me also, have come to expect when it comes to living close to an operating railroad.

I live close to a CSX operated mainline, we usually see about four to five trains a day(give or take) that carry hazardous materials. Most people say to me, "You must not too worried if one would actually crash in your town." To tell you the God's honest truth, it scares the living hell out of me to think about it. We've had derailments here before, amazingly the last one occurred here in 1971. That crash itself really said, "Even though one has hapened here before, it can and most certainly will happen again." When it does unfortunately, I might have a front row seat to the carnage.


reply posted on 27-12-2006 @ 01:16 AM by Bhadhidar
From a previous posting:


"If the US is attacked again, on a par with the scale of 9/11, I'd expect a train-borne chemical attack on one or more major cities.

Given the hazardous, even deadly, materials transported through the heart of some of our largest cities by train, given the predictability of those shipments and their accessabilty to tampering, I'm amazed nothing has happened yet.

As with the hijackers of 9/11, learning to run a train is made simple by the commercial availibilty of detailed computer simulation games. And there are no Air Marshalls aboard freight trains!

Model train enthusiasts across the country have faithfully recreated routes and terrain, to scale, of virtually every mile of track laid across the Nation; perfect for determining assault points. Take your digital camera to the next model train show and plot your strategies. Remember, it's all to scale!

Butane, Propane, Chlorine, Flourene, Anhydrous Ammonia, liquid oxygen, Nitric, Sulfuric and Hydrochloric Acids all there on the hoof, clearly labeled on the very cars themselves, if you can read the codes (just study up on haz-mat procedures).

Heck, you don't even need to be suicidal, Allah be Praised! Just slap an explosive package on the appropriate tank car and let a cheap GPS device trigger the detonation. Who's going to check every square inch of a two mile long freight train?"


Update: I've spoken with an ardent train enthusiast to confirm the basic points in my "Next Attack" scenario above. As it turns out, such an attack would be even easier to accomplish than I had first supposed. One concern I had was, in light of the risk posed by these rolling bombs, that some sort of "on-board" video surveillence system may have been incorporated.

My fears were unfounded. It appears that the only monitoring system a rolling train utilizes is an "End-of-Train-Device"; it's only function is to alert the train's engineer to problems with the train's wheels, brakes and couplers.

Imagine the economic "mass destruction" shutting down the nation's freight railways, it's primary means transporting its consumer goods, food, produce and raw manufacturing materials, would cause!"


I'm re-quoting myself here, but I say it is about time the US gov't woke up to the threat! Although I tend to agree that the their response seems far to limited in scope to prevent a concert terrorist effort.

It is far too easy to convert even a rolling train carrying the right materials into a weapon of devasting power; locking the thing up at night won't stop a terrorist from commandeering the train enroute, and detonating it once it reaches an urban center.


reply posted on 27-12-2006 @ 10:24 AM by gimmefootball400
With the E.O.T. devices that came out back in the 1970s and the 1980s, it basically put an end to the three man crew. As in, it did away with the caboose. That device put thousands of railroad workers out of a job if they couldn't find anything in the yard or on the head end of the train. With the threat of terrorism as it stands now, it can happen at anytime and any place. Besides that, just a normal derailment with release of hazardous material is possible, again, at any time and any place.

I have said this before and I will say it again.

I believe that a bio-chem attack would wipe out more people, but you want to rule over those people that are in an uprising against you. Now how did the Bush idiots think that if you are take pictures of a train, you are some how, some way helping the terrorists plot their next attack. That false sense of security must have gotten to what was left of their brains, that's if they had a brain to begin with. If you want to know the truth, it would be damn near impossibel to blow up a train. We railfans know what suspicious activities to look for in and around the tracks.

1. Suspicious packages or someting out of the ordinary next to the tracks.
2. People taking pictures of the tracks instead of an approaching train.
3. Unknown persons taking photographs of train stations and platforms
4. Persons taking pictures of railyards or depots using a special type of camera.
5. People placing any sort of object and leaving that object on the tracks or at a station platform

Those are just a few signs to look for.


reply posted on 31-12-2006 @ 12:47 PM by gimmefootball400
I think that the stickers or maybe even a special sort of identification would work to keep us railfans from being harrassed by "The Man." It would be another way to keep the rails safe from terrorists.

Don't forget to visit here either.

www.belowtopsecret.com...


--ADD ON--

Found this on
Association of American Railroads

Using national intelligence community "best practices," the Railroad Security Task Force developed a comprehensive risk analysis and security plan which includes:

• a database of railroad critical assets;
• assessments of railroad vulnerabilities;
• analysis of the terrorism threat;
• calculations of risk;
• identifications of countermeasures to reduce risk;
• definition of alert levels;
• delineation of actions to be taken at each alert levels; and
• functions of the AAR operations center and railroad alert network.


Apparently, the Association of American Railroads has had a plan in place since the years before 9-11. This version of the security plan does include the daily inspection of railroad cars that are sitting in the yard not being used in revenue service for a period of time. The adjustments made to this security plan include the increasing of employee training and awareness to make sure that over 200,000 railroad employees become the eyes and ears of railroad security. This plan is a living document due to the fact that this is a continuous risk assesment. When the conditions permit it, the plan will be updated, revised thoroughly and strengthened. The railroad industry does have plans to respond to any threats that are made against the nation's railroads.

(Prays for an applause)

[edit on 12/31/2006 by gimmefootball400]


reply posted on 31-12-2006 @ 01:16 PM by interestedalways
Originally posted by gimmefootball400
You mean you saw the pictures of the 'Auto-Max' autoracks that were to have been said that they were prisoner cars? That has already been discussed and debunked by some of us on here.

Here is the thread.

Unused Rail Cars

[edit on 12/31/2006 by gimmefootball400]


I read the thread, including your post that said they are UN cars and they are merely "Tool" cars.

Edit to add: Haven't we learned yet that heightened security isn't about keeping us safe? It is about slowly and methodically taking our rights of movement and freedom.
In my opinion that isn't a debunk, merely a statement that you believe to be true. I don't think those are the same pics, either. I will try to find a link.

[edit on 31-12-2006 by interestedalways]
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