Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 09:36:51 -0500
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: papers, please
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Barry Newton wrote:
>
> At 06:37 PM 3/5/02, you wrote:
> >I understand that, but what is he talking about here?
>
> You can't get onto an airplane without identifying yourself.  Though it
> seems to me that it's been that way as long as I can remember.
>
> Barry

And now Amtrak trains.

Although when we took the train to Noo Yawk last December, we were never
asked for ID.  Never saw anybody else get asked, either.  I think you
have to show ID to pick up a prepaid ticket, which makes sense.

In Europe, trains were frequent terrorist targets.  But in Europe,
trains are how you get around.  In the US, non-commuter trains are
regarded as being rather quaint, like Conestoga wagons or Mississippi
riverboats.  Not at all a terrorist target.

I suspect that the Amtrak folks just wanted to get in on the party.  Or
maybe they really think that somebody would hijack a train and run it
into a building.  Suspension of disbelief ....  Back around 1970 or so,
I heard a story about a guy who tried to hijack a Greyhound bus to
Cuba.  Serious mental problems there.

Only "terrorist" action involving a train I remember was the Arizona
derailment in 1995 (one killed, 78 injured).  Last I heard, no suspects
in that.  And you don't have to show ID to pull spikes.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."