Comments on: New Features on The Transport Politic

By: Anon256

Anon256 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:42:23 +0000

Kyle: Checking bags on an airplane isn’t “mandatory” either, unless your bags contain articles nor permitted in cabin luggage. Allowing weapons in baggage car checked baggage would pose no more security problems for Amtrak than it does for airlines, and would potentially provide a useful service for customers.

Not that there aren’t far more worthwhile ways our representatives could be trying to improve Amtrak.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:30:05 +0000

The only checked baggage on trains is mostly for long distance trains and that is not mandatory. The vast majority of passengers bring their luggage on the train with them and place them overhead or at the end of each car in the luggage rack.

So, bags on a train are easily accessible, while aircraft checked bags are not.

By: Yonah Freemark

Yonah Freemark — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:26:44 +0000

For now… Keeping an international database up to date would take too much time.

By: trainsintokyo

trainsintokyo — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:49:25 +0000

Yonah, I assume you want to limit the Planned Transit and Under Construction sections to North American projects, correct?

By: aw

aw — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:05:21 +0000

Doesn’t checked baggage stay in the baggage car?

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:32:56 +0000

But you can’t go and get your gun from your bag on an airplane- you can on a train. BIG DIFFERENCE.

By: EngineerScotty

EngineerScotty — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:14:53 +0000

Given that you can check firearms onto an aircraft, why would a train be any different? Not that I much care about the Senator's specific concern, but the prospect of someone hijacking a train is a lot less dangerous to national security than a hijacked airplane. If one is worried about passenger safety and the prospect of terrorists targeting HSR, it is worthwhile to remember that mass transit is probably far more at risk. Numerous terrorist attacks around the world have attacked subway systems in recent years, and consider the case of the Daegu subway fire, wherein a mentally ill person killed almost 200 people by setting a carton of flammable liquid ablaze. (Interestingly enough, many of the safety measures in place exacerbated the incindent, when a second train entered the station on the next track, could not leave when the power supply was shut off, and was engulfed as well).

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:51:54 +0000

Check out a full list of the transit projects that McCain aims to strike this week.

* the ARC transit tunnel connecting New York City and New Jersey

I wish.