Rail securitySecuring rails: doable, if complicated, endeavor

Railroads have been vulnerable since the first Transcontinental Railroad was built in 1869. Then and now, teenagers armed with rocks or guns see boxcars as tempting targets. Derailment, from both deliberate acts and accidents, is a constant threat — and sabotaging trains has a long history as part of warfare.

“We’ve been doing rail security since Jesse James was robbing trains,” said Thomas L. Farmer, assistant vice president of security for the Association of American Railroads, which represents major freight carriers and Amtrak.

Margaret Steen writes in Emergency Management that for a long time, the primary concern was people wanting to steal a freight train’s contents, shoot the crew or rob the passengers. The U.S. post-9/11 focus on security, however, is shining a new spotlight on other hazards surrounding railroads.

“It’s a vulnerable target,” said Charles Peña, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, who writes on national security and foreign policy. “There are good reasons [to] be concerned about it.”

The desire to protect the railroads, their employees, and passengers must be balanced, Peña said, “by what you can really do given that you’re trying to move large numbers of people.”

Railroad security — whether for passenger rails, commuter lines, or freight trains — is a complicated endeavor. The entities that own most railroads — from both the public and private sectors — have done much work, especially since 9/11, to increase security. Coordination challenges, the number of people involved, and the rail network’s vastness make it a difficult task.

Although the 9/11 attacks made security experts increase planning for terrorist attacks on a train or station, terrorist attacks on rail transportation is not new.

“Unfortunately bringing explosives into train stations is a terrorist tactic that’s been going on for generations,” Farmer said. The attacks — in recent years in London, Madrid and Mumbai, India, for example — have generally happened outside the U.S. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. is immune.

A complicated problem

Steen notes that after 9/11, the newly created DHS focused much attention on airline travel, which was understandable, said Dan Goodrich, a research associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University in California.

“Anything that can be put into motion — a car, bus, plane, ship — can all be used as weapons,” Goodrich said. “Air is a real issue because of its flexibility; [planes] can go literally anywhere.” It’s also easier to control access to commercial planes, so increasing security