Homeland (Un)Security Reveals Plan For U.S. Rail Lines

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.

Wow, railfans beware, eh?
I got hassled one time sitting next to the Metra Rail tracks watching trains go by. Technically, I WAS on Metra Property, but, it is a very popular place for railfanners.


Bummer and about time all rolled in to one.

Cuhail

Let me guess, you were next to the "Racetrack" Line for the Metra and Union Pacific. They heckled you while sitting in your car? Maybe they thought you were going to do somtheing to the tracks. Besides, us railfans have our places to sit and watch.

Metra/ CP in Rondout, Il, just at the crossing with EJ&E. Sweet spot, but, I was parked about 6 feet from the tracks.
I've been watching trains there for 30+ years, and someone's agenda screws my freetime!

Cuhail

I got my little spot here in town that is kinda difficult to find if you ain't looking for it. It's on the upper end of town on the other side of the tracks and I can look from one end of town to the other from it.

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.

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.

Ever since I got rousted that one time, I wished I could register somehow, to a database that says "This guy is alright" and/or having a sticker in my window that just says "Don't hassle Murphy, he's just a railfan" so the Rail Security Police (Metra Police by us) don't worry about us, but, know that we have their best interests in mind by hanging out there.
I, for one, would know that that guy kicking the turnout wasn't a railworker, and I, for one, would call the authorities if I saw it.

But, no. As of right now, they hassle us. They do know that railfans are out there, but, like I said, theres no sticker in my back window saying "Goodguy"

Waddya think? lets make stickers?

Cuhail

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]

My cynical mind interpets this bit as "What in the world are *they* planning on moving around with the freight trains?"

I have seen links on here and on Alex Jones site that show railroad cars with handcuffs fixed to the wall.

Generally based on past experience when something is tightened down and sewn up by "homeland security" they are wanting to take control of something for their own uses, not for our safety.

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]

--Deleted Post--

Double Post.

[edit on 12/31/2006 by gimmefootball400]

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]

Ya know, thinking back, the person who really got me into "thinking" with a suspecting mind was a man named Greg.

The first thing he showed me was self-taken pictures of white passenger cars in a yard. White cars with blue reporting numbers. White passenger cars with blue reporting numbers and the windows plated over.

A whole yard full of them. In Minnesota.

Gods, I wish I could get a hold of that guy now. I'd love to see those pix of what he labeled as UN prisoner cars.

Funny how life is. He really got me to think outside the box and now, I can't find him to save my life.

Cuhail

Originally posted by Cuhail

Ya know, thinking back, the person who really got me into "thinking" with a suspecting mind was a man named Greg.

Funny how life is. He really got me to think outside the box and now, I can't find him to save my life.

Cuhail

Not to "Derail" (pun not intended) this thread, but Cuhail I would like to share with you that the person who got me to think outside the box was an old "bag lady" I met at a Greyhound bus stop in the late 70's. I was a young teenager and she was ranting about the gov't planning to implement some "big brother" type stuff. She said that soon we would all have to get SS#'s at birth and such. It was way out there then. But I listened and I learned. Maybe the reality of what she believed drove her mad and so she became a homeless baglady. I hope that won't be my fate.

Well, Greg was great fun. At the time, I was working at a gas station and he would just hang out and talk. He told me all sorts of theories regarding everything from the famous "Water-fueled cars" to the Flight 800 sorts. He saw my interest grow and passed on such wonderful books like "Behold a Pale Horse" and "The Illuminatus Trilogy". I was listening to Art Bell at night and talking to Greg during the day. It's been about 6 years since I saw him last and now that my interest is a bit more stable and not filled with abject terror, I'd love to ask some poignant questions based on knowledge and not wonder.

To keep to the thread, I want to ask him more about those railcars and maybe get some reporting numbers to check out the owners of the cars themselves. At the time, I wasn't on the internet at all. Since then I've found a couple of sites where you can enter numbers on railcars and find out who owns/leases them.

Now, I just gotta find Greg...seems more important now somehow.


BELIEVE THE BAGLADIES!!!

Cuhail

There are a 'few' websites that give the reporting marks for railroads across the United States and Canada.

www.aar.org...
www.trainscan.com...

As we were discussing in chat, why attack a train car when you can simply derail the entire train and obliterate a neighborhood.

This is more fear mongering from DHA/TSA and a totally ineffective waste of tax dollars.

(insert standard disclaimer about opinions and generalizations here)