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Comment by metacritic12 | Hacker News Reader

TSA screening in trains make much less sense than in planes. First, planes have a history of hijackings -- trains much less so. Second, TSA got implemented on planes after a very salient failure: 9/11. What's the equivalent for trains? Finally, whatever threat vector could compromise a train could do so in so many different situations: buses, commuter rail, large crowds, etc. Is TSA going to cover those next?

It's so ridiculous that I can't help but think cynically of it: either TSA is doing the bureaucratic thing of expanding as much as it can, or some really good airplane lobbyist finally got their payday.

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From a future Black Mirror episode:

"Welcome to Seaview Estates, a Safer Neighborhood(tm) by Amazon & in cooperation with the TSA.

We are proud of our award winning public transit connections. Our security officers will conduct quick, minimally invasive searches of all residents, visitors, pets and vehicles when leaving your house, and upon returning to a Safer Neighborhood.

Please note that delays should be expected when entering a Safer Neighborhood, so you should arrive early to clear our screening process.

All liquids, gels and powders should be in transparent containers of no more than 2 ounces, unless from a Safer Neighborhood certified vendor. Did you know that all products purchased through Amazon Prime are pre-certified?"

> TSA screening in trains make much less sense than in planes. First, planes have a history of hijackings

Not to mention that the most important measures protecting against this have nothing to do with the TSA. 9/11 Changed completely the way passengers and crew see hijacking. It used to be that hijackers had demands, not suicide missions. Anyone trying to do it now will face a planeful of people fighting them like their lives depend on it, not to mention a locked, reinforced cockpit door. Attacks on planes are stopped either before they ever make it the airport, as with the plot that made them ban liquids, or after they're in the air, as with the undewear- and shoe-bombers.

To add to that, I expect hijacking a plane means the very real risk of a military jet being sent to shoot the plane down, especially if it's flying toward populated areas.

The idea of a train hijacking kinda made me chuckle. Some angry guy demanding the train go somewhere its tracks do not run

Ali G (Sacha Baron Cohen) posed this hypothetical to a homeland security official.

"What if they were laying the tracks during the night - and, God forbid, ran a train into the White House?"

https://youtu.be/fNfSQA6ZRsc

The whole interview is genius.

This is hilarious, I completely forgot about this episode.

There's a whole movie about this. It was remade at least twice, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taking_of_Pelham_One_Two_T...

Who remembers the relevant Monty Python sketch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MYxAlA5wuk

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113845/ comes to mind here.

Even if the tracks go there, surely there would be systems in place to set up a red light that automatically stops the train.

Polish railways have a auto-stop system that works by radio.

NL had a train hijacking long ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Dutch_train_hijacking

There was an attack on the Thalys not all that long ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Thalys_train_attack

and another attempted attack

https://www.voanews.com/a/europe_americans-who-foiled-attemp...

So while there isn't nearly as much history for train hijackings they did happen, and I'm sure there will be more in the future. But that doesn't justify the kind of security theater that the TSA goes in for.

Electrify the rail. Then just turn the train off if it's hijacked

Yes, we have that. But that didn't solve much, it was the passengers that were threatened/shot/killed.

TSA in fact would love to expand to cover all mass transit. They’ve done pilots of screening greyhound bus passengers

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