Railroad Track Patrols -- A New Mission for CAP?

[RADIOMAN015]

>>I'd like to start by addressing the security concerns raised by the intel capture in the Osama bin Laden raid.  Amtrak currently works with RailPol, an international, interagency policing taskforce.  We use this relationship to keep abreast of cutting edge security.  Amtrak is most concerned about an external attack at a vulnerable point—a bridge or tunnel.  Looking at systems that would allow us to detect track tampering.<<


Asked about relying more on local LE resources, Boardman answered:

>> There is room for improvement there.  But trains are dangerous, and even well-trained crews have lost their lives working around tracks.  Need to make sure that people on our right-of-ways have the right kind of training. <<

The bottom line on this is you can do all you want with track security but some guy with a rocket launcher can hide in the woods and with a simple portable scanner listen to the train dispatcher and have a very good idea when the train the going to be in his area and just step out prior to the train passing and shoot some rockets at the passenger cars as the train goes buy.   There's nothing also not to prevent an airborne attack with small aircraft with small bombs --

It looks to me like this is going to be more money diverted into security systems that will be marginal at best.  Unfortunately that is why terrorism is partially successful because more of our limited national resources are allocated to security systems.  BTW with Israel's great security systems, it still hasn't stopped attacks completely.
IF you take any public transportation, pay attention to your surroundings (however certain attacks at the night time likely you wouldn't even see).
RM