Train Station Set as Test Site for Screening of Passengers

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Train Station Set as Test Site for Screening of Passengers

April 16, 2004
 By MATTHEW L. WALD





WASHINGTON, April 15 - The Bush administration plans to
begin testing techniques next month for improving passenger
rail security at a station in suburban Maryland that is
served by Amtrak and commuter trains running between
Washington and Baltimore, government officials said.

Passenger screening at the New Carrollton, Md., station
will be conducted by the Transportation Security
Administration, but will not be as invasive as airport
searches.

"No one at New Carrollton will be asked to remove their
belt or shoes," said Dan Stessel, an Amtrak spokesman.

The focus of the new program, called the Transit and Rail
Inspection Pilot, or Trip, is not guns or knives, but
bombs, officials said. Mark O. Hatfield Jr., a spokesman
for the Transportation Security Administration, said the
issue was "a different threat, and different protocols."
Trains cannot be hijacked or crashed into buildings,
officials pointed out.

But since the bombings in Madrid on March 13, train
operators around the country have been making announcements
to their passengers to watch for unattended packages.

Mr. Hatfield said his agency was seeking "some good
baseline information" on the effect that screening would
have on passenger flow.

Among the differences from airport inspections, he said,
was the kind of equipment that the security agency could
use; the type it has installed at airports could not be
used in the heat, cold and wet of railroad platforms, he
said.

He added that testing or actual security measures might
later be used in "traditional big East Coast indoor
stations like Penn Station or Grand Central in New York."

Techniques to be tested at New Carrollton could include
bomb-sniffing dogs or electronic detectors, officials said.


New Carrollton was chosen because it is convenient to the
Department of Homeland Security's Washington headquarters
and because its platforms are elevated in a way that makes
it easy to control access, so passengers could be screened
before the train arrived.

But that is unusual for commuter lines and Amtrak alike.
Amtrak stops in more than 500 places around the United
States, and fewer than half are staffed by a ticket agent
or any other employee, according to the railroad. The
railroad's president, David L. Gunn, described most of the
stops as "platforms in the desert."

As a security precaution, Amtrak stopped selling tickets on
board its Northeast corridor trains, between Washington and
Boston, soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The
change required that a traveler buy a ticket from an agent
at a station, which requires showing a picture
identification or sliding a credit card into a vending
machine. The credit card contains information on the
identity of the holder, who may or may not be the traveler.


In the Northeast corridor, passengers must show tickets on
boarding, and may be asked to show identification, although
they generally are not. Outside the corridor, passengers
can buy tickets after they board.

Government security officials say they have discussed
whether to compare the names of railroad ticket buyers to
"watch lists," as is done with airplane passengers. Mr.
Stessel said Amtrak had the capacity to supply such names
but had not been asked to do so. He said providing the
names would create "a number of constitutional
considerations and privacy considerations that we would
need to work out."

Generally, no identification is needed to buy a ticket on a
commuter train, and those trains carry more people in close
proximity than Amtrak trains do, although unattended
packages might be more obvious on a commuter train.

In an effort to improve security, Amtrak has limited
passengers on its Northeast corridor trains to two large
carry-ons, like suitcases or boxes, not including purses,
brief cases, backpacks and laptop cases. But it has not
closed off the baggage storage areas at either end of many
of its passenger cars. In contrast, many European rail
systems have closed off those spaces since the Madrid
bombings in March.

In speeches, officials of the Department of Homeland
Security have also emphasized protecting rail bridges and
tunnels. In testimony last fall, James M. Loy, then the
administrator of the Transportation Security
Administration, said his agency was also concerned about
hazardous materials on the rails. One question, Mr. Loy
said, was whether placing prominent labels on such
materials helped or harmed security.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/16/national/16TRAI.html?ex=1083113352&ei=1&en=c9f193a57921040b
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