Congress: Rail Security Sparse, Inadequate

Congress: Rail Security Sparse, Inadequate

Wes Vernon
Thursday, May. 6, 2004

Angry lawmakers at a Congressional hearing Wednesday charged that American railroads are inadequately protected from the kind of savage attack that caused about 200 murders in Madrid March 11.

Federal regulators and industry witnesses responded that the questions raised by critics do not tell the whole security story.

"Two and a half years after 9/11, there are only 24 people in Washington whose primary focus deals with rail security," exclaimed Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla.

Add those 24 employees in the Department of Homeland Security Department's Maritime and Land Office to the 3 to 5 employees claimed at the House hearing by the Federal Railroad Administration, and the total, around 30, is hardly enough to protect America's freight and passenger train network which is spread out across well over 100,000 miles of rail infrastructure, according to Brown and other members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure's Subcommittee on Railroads.

But Edward R. Hamberger, President of the industry's Association of American Railroads (AAR), called the congressmen's attention to a long list of security precautions the railroads have taken in connection with numuerous law enforcement officers to protect American lives.

The railroad security problem in the U.S. is twofold:

There is concern about the transportation of hazardous materials (hazmat).

The passenger trains in the U.S., according to the American Public Transportation Associaition, serve 16 times the customers on airlines when all the commuter and light rail systems are added up. Amtrak is a small - but important - part of that total.

Rep. Stehen Lynch, D-Mass., complained that when he held a hearing in his Boston district on this issue, he couldn't find any federal official in the area to participate because there are none outside Washington.

"You need to get people out of Washington and on the road," he told Chet Lunner, Assistant Administrator of Homeland Security's Office of Maritime and Land Security.

Hamberger of AAR cited the industry's Railway Alert Network which, he said, puts the rail industry "in constant communication with intelligence and security personnel at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the FBI's National Joint Terrorism Task Force, state and local law enforcement and others."

"A railroad police officer and knowledgeable railroad analysts work literally suide by side with government intelligence" at various agencies, the industry spokesman added.

Edward Wytkind, President of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, argued more must be done to improve rail security, "both in transport of passengers and freight."

The labor chief charged that the industry was being "disingenuous" in urging employees to report safety or security violations, only to punish them for bringing the violations to light.

"That charge has been made, but never proven," AAR spokesman Tom White responded in an interview with NewsMax.com. "If an employee calls that to the attention of the Federal Railroad Administration [FRA], then the railroad will be punished," he added.

Amtrak's Police and Security chief Ernest R. Frazier cited the 342 "sworn officers" in his unit. Amtrak, he said, "has worked [since 9/11] to develop terrorism-based vulnerability and threat assessments."

Industry and federal witnesses cited a pilot security project in New Carrollton, Md., a busy Amtrak and commuter station in a D.C. suburb, where advanced technology using "non-intrusive" checking for explosives was undergoing a 30-day trial.

For all the good intentions, there was some dissatisfaction with the security of customers who ride passenger trains and also protections against the freight transport of hazardous material. Such freight transport operates within inches of residences in the nation's capitol, as well as through tunnels and on other rights of way near several federal agencies, the Capitol buiulding, and the Supreme Court building.

Efforts to re-route the shipments have run up against the argument that directing this traffic elsewhere would lead to longer dwell times on trackage that was not as well-equipped to handle that kind of shipment, and thus would increase the danger.

Besides, it was argued, diverting the risk from one community to another is questionable public policy.

In an interview outside the hearing room, Ross Capon, a key leader of the consumer-oriented National Association of Railroad Passengers cited a story in Connecticut where a TV crew went into supposedly secure rail yard terroritry and got right up into a locomotive whithout being stopped.

He backed the transit industry's request for more federal money to protect rails against terrorist attack. The American Public Transportation Associaition cites over $11 billion in federal help to airlines since 9/11 as compared to about $115 million to the railroads.

Rep. Brown asked Lunner of Homeland Security if he planned to get all the security people in the federal government together to formulate an "interim plan" for the rail industry before Congress goes home later this year.

When the DHS official said he would atempt to coordinate security precautions with others in the government, Brown was dissatisfied, saying "I take that answer as a 'no.'"

Witnesses cited the huge differences between security for the airlines and security in such an "open" transportatiion mode as railroading.

Once again, the question has been raised: Will all the money in the world deliver airtight assurances against a Madrid-style disaster coming to America?

The answer is no, just as airlines still can't be 100% protected. The question then comes down to: How much is needed for a "best effort?"

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Homeland/Civil Defense