Don't Panic, Here Come the Train Marshals!

To trains need to get marshals or do marshals need to get trained?

http://www.wesh.com/news/5537467/detail.html

Government Considers Marshals On Trains

WINTER PARK, Fla. -- Just one week after two federal air marshals shot and killed a local man at Miami airport, other marshals are being put on some of the nation's trains. Other security measures are being added to protect train travelers in Central Florida, WESH 2 News reported.

Federal marshals are not on trains yet, but they will be on Amtrak trains and perhaps local bus systems if an experiment this week is successful. The government is responding to complaints that air travel is a lot safer since Sept. 11, 2001 while other transportation systems have been ignored.

Undercover air marshals are on thousands of flights a day. They're trained to stop terrorists. Two of those marshals shot and killed a man running from a plane in Miami last week because they said Rigoberto Alpizar, of Maitland, said he had a bomb.

Now, the government is putting marshals on some Amtrak trains. None are on trains in Florida, but could be soon. Eddie and Arlene Delgado ride trains and would like to know marshals are on board. "I think it's long overdue. I'll feel a lot safer on the train," Arlene Delgado said.

WaPo link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301709.html

In the San Francisco Bay Area the train system, BART, is famous for it's weird riders. For a while in the 80's a group called the Society for Creative Anachronisms held regular combat practice at an East Bay station. This involved practice swords (foam wrapped steel), masks, guards, guantlets and boiled leather shoulder gear. Nobody bats an eye.

I've seen Aikido, Kendo and Chinese Kung Fu pratctioners in uniform on BART and MUNI with packages that I'm sure contained several swords each. No problem, no police hassle.....ever.

These guys would get shot now.

What a total waste of resources.

Please bring your medication. It's a matter of life and death.

But be sure to take it before you get on--if you're seen fishing for it on board you might be suspected of reaching for a gun and be shot. :eyes:

could we, um, have some TRAINED marshalls this time at least? How about people who didn't FAIL at being prison guards?

...they will be on Amtrak trains and perhaps local bus systems if an experiment this week is successful

And what is the benchmark for success? No citizens protesting the intrusion? Because they couldn't possibly measure whether or not marshals made safer a transportation system that WILL NOT HAVE any likelihood of terrorist attack. Geez.

To hijack a train and fly it to cuba :silly: