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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

Terrorists blow up trains, too.

The "terrorists" aren't the reason he prefers the train. Terrorist attacks on both are so rare that they're not a real reason to prefer one over the other. However the overly invasive, rude and ineffective airport security is a strong reason not to fly when there's an alternative available. For some reason the trains, malls, schools, libraries, churches and stadiums around where I live aren't getting blown up by terrorists and they have little or no security at all.

The point being, if a few train attacks occur, you can expect similar TSA regulations being issued for that mode of transport.

Not that its very likely in the USA; with a few exceptions rail service is abysmal. It took me 48 hours to travel from Nevada to Chicago last time I took the train, what with mechanical breakdowns and other unexplained delays. Lost my luggage too. Never again.

The uk experimented with metal detector type screening at train stations after our bombings on the 7th july. It doesn't work with you have thousands of people streaming in and out of the gates- all you do is end up practically shutting down the station.

So now they focus on temporary gates and profiling - which turns out to be much more efficient than random screening.

At the moment (for various reasons to complex to go into here) I am sporting a huge beard. Other words that may be used to describe my beard are mighty, magnificent and fearsome. Anyway, showing up at the London side of the Eurostar last month, I was "randomly" selected to have my bag searched.

At the Paris side, I was again approached by staff, this time offering me a Halal meal...

One thing to bear in mind- mass transit terror attacks over the past ten years have probably killed more people directly in attacks on trains (and subways/tube) than plane attacks.

Bombs in london and madrid caused hundreds of lives lost or serious injuries, bombs in the pakistan/india region often claim thousands.

The threat (as also mentioned here) is that a hijacked plane is, in reality, a massive missile and, to use the phrase, a true weapon of mass destruction. This however was resolved after 9/11 with new cockpit procedures and more alert passengers. (c.f. Bruce Schneier's blog for more)

It depends. I've taken train journeys in Spain where the security is almost as strict as the airport, although a lot faster. I am not a fan of security theater either but it's as much about quelling general passenger anxiety by making a demonstration of vigilance as anything else.

Yes, but for some reason that extremely rare event doesn't attract the same level of paranoid security theatre that other, even rarer events do.

There's something about planes. Perhaps it comes down to ground-dwelling-mammal hindbrain psychology: We're intrinsically more comfortable when we're close to the ground, even when we're theoretically more vulnerable there. I suppose if birds ran our transportation system they'd think differently. ("I'd sure hate it if someone set off some fireworks when I was on my feet on the ground -- I'd be trapped! Only two dimensions to maneuver in, low potential energy, I can't even move my wings properly, and just think how vulnerable I'd be from above! I'd far rather be 20,000 feet up, where I can jump out a window in case of trouble.")

Small problems cause more deaths in planes. A condom-sized bomb could make an airplane unstable enough to crash and kill everyone on board. On a train, a bomb that size would do little more than burn up a few rows of seats. They would just need to uncouple that one car, move everyone to the car behind, and continue running the slightly-shorter train.

Shhhhhh! Don't let the authorities know, or they'll start silly security theatre there as well.

I'm not convinced of that, actually. We have historical precedent -- trains were bombed in Madrid, and there have been all sorts of transit bombings in the Middle East. But riding on the train is still not a big deal as far as I can see.

Passenger aircraft may be uniquely suited to inane security theatre. They're already so inefficient and uncomfortable that it's relatively easy to get away with piling on additional inefficiency and discomfort. And the problem of securing them feels almost tractable -- they're only vulnerable at the start and end of the trip [1], they have very limited entrances and exits, they carry so little stuff that you feel as if you actually have a chance of screening it all. [2] The problem with security theatre on trains and buses, to say nothing of ships, is that you just can't make it plausible without making it so expensive that you might as well just shut it down. Theatre is no good if the audience can't suspend disbelief.

---

[1] Well, technically, there are surface-to-air missiles. But somehow those are easy to handwave away. Theatre is a mysterious business.

[2] You probably don't, of course, but reality is not at issue here.

It's really because trains cost a whole lot less than an aircraft....and that's about it. The theater of security has very little to do with protecting passengers if you notice. I'm always surprised nobody has just blown up the security line at an airport. Easy access to the line, hundreds of people, no security on the way to the line. It's about as soft of a target as you can find.

Both security theatre and terrorism is about managing perceptions. One is just a response to the other in the public + media domain.

Also government will do whatever it takes to seem like it is doing something. Lots of rules, directives with cryptic long numbers separated by dashes, TSA employees with uniforms resembling those of real police officers, etc, etc. This is all very very different than actually doing something or making anything safe.

I agree 110%. I think what I mean is that, the purpose of the security is 2-fold, to prevent the loss of expensive equipment, and to make people think that the security is for their benefit so that they continue to fly/ride/whatever and keep those businesses afloat. It just so happens that lots of the things you have to do to keep an airplane (the equipment) safe are the same things you need to do to keep people safe.

If they were serious about the security of the people on the aircraft, they'd make it really simple instead of complex. Simple things like no carry-ons whatsoever and every flight has a marshal. None of this Monty Python-esque "only 1 carry-on unless it's a 'personal item' in which case you get 2 or it's a Thursday but you can only get in it during the flight above 20,000ft and no later than 60 minutes before landing, but only if your point of origin is Minnesota during the month of November or Kansas during the Spring -- and if it's electronic in any way shape or form, forget about it, unless it has an 'airplane mode', or is a watch that can resist depths up to 60m".

edit the top story on reddit right now has this right "Only two things have made flying safer since 9/11: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers."

I disagree. It's because driving a train into a building is significantly harder than driving a plane into one

At any rate, it's about property protection and not passenger protection.

And yet, somehow, they're still a more civilized means of transit.

The fear is the use of an airplane to crash against a building with people inside--i.e. to use the airplane as a weapon. The train can "only" be used for terror: to threaten to blow up some people. If you cynically add that government high officials are unlikely to use a train and very likely to be targets of an airplane used as a weapon, you get why traveling by train is still a pleasure.

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