McClatchy: Building a high-speed future: 220 mph, and no pat-downs

[marmar]

Commentary: Building a high-speed future: 220 mph, and no pat-downs
By Curtis Tate | McClatchy Newspapers


This might be the holiday travel season that gets U.S. high-speed rail projects moving.

Faced with invasive airport screenings and traffic-choked highways, Americans may say "enough!" and demand a transportation alternative that's already embraced by America's biggest competitors.

While we're still waiting for construction to begin on the first mile of true high-speed rail in the U.S., other countries aren't sitting still.

China, which recently passed Japan as the world's No. 2 economy, now has the world's fastest trains. By the time it's complete in a decade, China will have invested $300 billion in a 16,000-mile system that operates at speeds up to 220 mph. Despite starting later, China will have a bigger and faster network than France, which ran its first high-speed trains in 1981, and Japan, which has had them since 1964.

Great Britain, the country that invented the railroad, has been slower than its European neighbors to embrace high-speed rail. Now it's planning a 250 mph Y-shaped network that would connect London with Birmingham and eventually northern England and Scotland. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/22/103991/commentary-building-a-high-speed.html?storylink=addthis#ixzz16CkgyJip

[Richardo]

1. I don't understand why a high-speed train would eliminate security screenings

Seems they'd be almost as good a target as a plane, maybe even better because the media can get to the crash site much easier and broadcast the death and destruction up close.

[marmar]

2. There's a security screening on the Eurostar, at least there was the last time I rode it, but.....

....... on the other European high-speed trains I've ridden - the ICE and the Thalys - there was no screening. And even the screening on the Eurostar didn't involve a pat-down.

[bettyellen]

4. I'd think being a shiny new $$$ toy, it could be targeted though

[marmar]

6. True. I'm not quite sure there's not formalized security for highspeed rail.....

..... maybe governments' intelligence-gathering ops tell them terrorists are fixated on airplanes.

[bettyellen]

19. in NYC it;s been whatever would make the biggest splash... bridges

tunnels, subways etc have all had high alert days and heavier screening and security that never got leaked to the press as far as I saw. I only hear of it because the NYPD has had to throw their wieight into dealing with chatter and threats often and quietly since 9/11, and I have family there. So to me, a new fancy train seems like it fits the same bill. But who knows, could be it;s just all chatter to exhaust our resources, or to amuse themselves. It's hard to say. To me, it seems really easy for the rest of the nation to say security is too much, just like it was easy to over react and want to kill muslims after 9/11. It feels like the rest of the country got too heated and has now forgotten how horrific it was for us.

[reggie the dog]

13. what kind of screening did it have?

the eurostar has a passport check becuase the UK is not part of schengen so they maintain border check points (there are british agents in paris who check you so that when you arrive in london you just get out of the train and go...)

[bettyellen]

3. i was thinking the same thing, and China is the site of the biggest annual human migration

every New Year. it totally makes sense since like 80% of the population lives no where near family, and their trains are choked. Im still in favor of it, but I wonder about these things.

[slackmaster]

5. It wouldn't. They're lying.

:nuke:

[midnight armadillo]

7. A plane is more dangerous

A plane can be flown into or over things and is full of thousands of gallons of jet fuel (read what happened to the town of Lockerbie). A train can only crash off of its tracks, and an electric train doesn't carry and fuel.

So yes, a bomb on a train is a bad, bad thing, but it's not as bad as a bomb on a plane.

[Jkid]

9. But what if someone actually hijacks a train for the purpose to crash into a major train station?

What are the implications of that?

[marmar]

10. I believe a high-speed train can be shut down remotely.....

Not 100% sure, but I think it can.

[reggie the dog]

15. yes, easily, cut the electricity to it off...

[Richardo]

11. Terror is just as much about visuals as it is real damage - maybe even moreso.

It's a psychological weapon, not (necessarily) an asset-oriented weapon.

Plus, there are many more points of opportunity - an explosive could be set anywhere along the right of way. Damage 1' of track in the middle of nowhere and hundreds of lives could be lost.

[reggie the dog]

14. the tgv in france has no security screening

it is state run, they claim they are faster than planes in that you dont have to arrive early for a security check and you go from downtown to downtown, not from out in the suburbs to out in the suburbs then catch a cab to come downtown....

[Richardo]

16. France doesn't have intrusive TSA searches at the airport either

My point was, why should the security of high-speed train passengers in the US be treated any differently than those on airplanes?

[reggie the dog]

18. ah, i see

that one went right over my head at first.. i was born in the usa and lived there until i was 24 in 2003 and i had see the creeping fascism since i was 14 and most people incuding friends and family thought i was crazy.... i wish i had been crazy...

[dembotoz]

8. not in wisconsin

our new gov scott walker does not like trains.

guess they were not mentioned in the bible so they do not exist..................

[FrancisTreptoe]

17. Not in Ohio as well.

Big oil isn't a fan, so why should our GOP Governor be?

[sally cat]

12. Napolitano:"we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime"

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/130549-next-step-for-body-scanners-could-be-trains-boats-and-the-metro-