No, I gave up on Amtrak four years ago, when they wouldn't let me
board because I didn't have "papers, please." I did, of course,
have a valid ticket. (Flying, I gave up on five years before that.)
To get to Balticon, I take local transit. (The transit systems of
DC and Baltimore meet in the middle.) To get to Philcon, I take a
Chinatown bus. I no longer go to cons further away than Philadelphia,
and don't plan to until the War on Tourism is over. Maybe after the
inauguration in 11 months it will end.
Their concern obviously isn't that someone will hijack a train and run
it into a building; it's apparently that someone will set off a bomb
in a crowded train. I don't know why that would be more likely than
anywhere else that's crowded, such as a downtown sidewalk or a Hugo
award ceremony. Or is the plan to have ID checks and warrantless
searches everywhere?
DC Metro trains are much more crowded than Amtrak, and nobody checks
ID or searches bags on Metro. A bomb at the L'Enfant Plaza station,
where four of the five lines converge, could not only kill people, but
shut down the whole system for days or weeks.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html
before emailing me.
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