Comment Re:Why.... (Score 1) 206
Trains are, generally, faster, cheaper, and more efficient. Also more comfortable.
More comfortable, that's for sure. Faster? Flying takes about 75 minutes. TFA said the train ride will be just over two hours. Once you factor in TSA groping, it's probably about a wash.
Yeah, because of the limited speeds involved, the only way high-speed rail travel makes sense is if it is Amtrak-style, where there's approximately zero security other than having police at major stations, with the occasional bomb-sniffing dog.
And that's a perfectly reasonable level of security, too. Trains aren't like airplanes, where if something goes wrong, police can't respond. Trains are on the ground, and if somebody starts something, someone will call 911, and police will meet the train within single-digit minutes at the nearest road crossing.
And trains also aren't like an airplane, where terrorists plausibly might try to smuggle a bomb onto an airplane to bring it down. There are far too many easier ways to attack a train, like sabotaging the rails or putting a bomb on a railroad bridge, and none of those require the attacker to blow him/herself up in the process or put him/herself at risk of getting caught carrying a bomb. So exactly nobody even remotely in his or her right mind would attack a train in that way (though I don't mind seeing the dogs just as a hedge against people who aren't even remotely in their right minds).
And trains also aren't like airplanes, where terrorists could take them over and crash them into a building. Trains pretty much only go where the rails go, and attempting to make them go somewhere else will not be particularly successful.
So there just isn't any rational reason for having any sort of security before boarding a train. All it does is cost travelers a whole lot of time, money, and convenience, all for approximately zero actual increase in public safety.