U.S. rail vulnerable to attack

In a certain way, the United States has been lucky. While Spain, France, and, just recently, Germany, have had to confront terrorist attacks on railways, America’s vast network of trains and light rail have escaped unscathed, or so it appears. A recent report by the minority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee mentions a few historical threats to the nation’s railways:

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1. In 1995, terrorists calling themselves the “Sons of Gestapo,” pulled twenty-nine spikes from a stretch of railroad track in the Arizona desert, sending four cars of the Sunset Limited plunging off a thirty-foot trestle.

2. In 1997, New York City police officers successfully averted a potential nail-filled pipe bomb attack on a Brooklyn subway station frequented by Orthodox Jews by two Palestinian immigrants.

3. Ron Suskind in his new book, The One Percent Doctrine, Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (which we highly recommend), reports that Al Qaeda planned to release hydrogen cyanide in the New York subways in 2003. The poison gas would have been placed in subway cars and activated remotely.

4. On the eve of the Republican National Convention, two men were arrested for planning to attack the Herald Square subway station in New York City with bombs hidden in backpacks. The men had also allegedly considered other targets including the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Despite the fact that trains remain vulnerable — which is to say, enticing —targets, very little money has been spent responding to the problem, and Rep. Bernie Thompson (D-Mississippi) has asked the General Accounting Office to explain why. The report will take some time, but a few answers can be given now:

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1. Funding and federalism: The vast majority of the nation’s rail system is owned by states and local municipalities, many of which offer connections to Amtrak but operate independantly. The federal government, already stretched for security dollars, would have a hard time allocating sufficient resources across the board, and yet, because most municipal rail systems —indeed, even Amtrak — operate at a financial loss, it is improbable that any one of them would be able to implement anything sufficiently robust.

2. Lack of federal guidance: Soon after 9/11, Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA), which created the Transportation Security Agency and manadated the screeing of all checked airline luggage. But when it came to rail safety, ATSA only required the TSA assess threats to the rail system, develop strategies in response, and undertake neccesary research and development activities. These efforts were woefully inadequate, receiving a C- grade from the 9/11 Discourse Project: “While the strategy reportedly outlines broad objectives, this first version lacks the necessary detail to make it an effective management tool.”

3. Technical problems: Unlike air travel, where one boards and disembarks at two previously determined locations, each rail line may have dozens or even hundreds of nodes where one can do so. Thus, screening all luggage with X-ray machines would be too expensive and impractical. Other forms of explosive detection may eventually provide some answer, but great doubt remains due to the enormous scale of the problem, especially when one considers the two other problems mentioned above.

4. Competition for dollars: In light of the 9/11 attacks, the Richard Reid event, and the recent capture of the twenty-four alleged liquid bombers in London, attention and money is focussed on airline security. This makes sense, to a degree, for both practical and political reasons. The chances of a succesful defense are higher as well in comparison to rail security, and the expected damage being defended against is higher as well: while the destruction of a passenger train would be devastating, a terrorist cannot commandeer it in the way he might a plane. Considering the high level of publicity given threats to planes — is there something about being high in the air, fully exposed, that makes the threat more upsetting? — it is no wonder politicians follow the leader.

-read more in Jonathan Marino’s Govexe.com report []; for the House Democrats’ PDF report on mass-transportation vulnerability, see the House Homeland Security Committee Web site ; see also a recent Congressional Research Service PDF report