Eastern Railroad Discussion > Terror on the Tracks

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

"Let's say the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter really was a terrorist.

"What if those were bombs he was placing on the chemical placard of a rail car inside the Thatcher Chemical Co. plant in suburban Las Vegas, and not his business cards?

"Instead of a camera recording lax security over some of the deadliest chemicals ever produced, he held a detonator? And the string of chlorine gas cars trundling down Union Pacific Railroad tracks in the heart of Vegas was his prey?

"If he was a terrorist, and his goal was to release a potentially catastrophic cloud of deadly gases, explosives and caustic acids -- in unguarded cars, left abandoned -- then a U.S. Department of Homeland Security's planning scenario might apply: 17,500 people dead, another 10,000 suffering injuries and 100,000 more flooding trauma wards, convinced they've been poisoned. The environmental damage would take weeks to clean up, forcing the evacuation of as many as 70,000 residents from a city built on sin, military might and heavy industry."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_487117.html

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_487120.html

Dave

its impossible to secure as many soft targets as we have available without being a total "lock down" state..lets hope it doesn't come to that. I'd rather us go find the bad guys where they are BEFORE they do something like desribed in the senario.

chico
http://heartlandrails.com/home/home.asp

I guess now we need to stop shipping any chemicals except in guarded transportion. Let's see, that means we need to have a guard for each tankcar, or truck that carries hazardeous materials. You want to see a good way to stop the economy in its tracks. Over stiffen the security rules on the railroads. Those hazardeous chemicals are very often used in the production of normal household products. The prices on those products would skyrocket, thus hurting the economy of the entire country.

I'm sure that San Fran Nan & Stinky Harry Reid will fix the problem! Ya right!!

Yes, but how did he get into the chemical plant?

Most manufacturing plants of any size or significance have fences and security if for nothing else but liability especially with dangerous chemicals and raw materials.

chuchubobnv Wrote:
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> I'm sure that San Fran Nan & Stinky Harry Reid
> will fix the problem! Ya right!!

Very intelligent post. Thanks for sharing.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/editor/84/8418edit.html


China is ready to step in and produce all of our chemical needs. All we need is a paranoid media stiring up the public. Why produce dangerous chemicals here when the Chinese can produce them? The industry will move production overseas before taking steps as outlined in this article. We did the same thing with dirty polluting steel in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's population declined from 650,000 in 1950 to 325,000 today.

TrackOne Wrote:
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> ...Pittsburgh's population declined from
> 650,000 in 1950 to 325,000 today.

And what did the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's circulation drop from/to in the same period? Is it possible they have a circulation problem they are trying to deal with by a little "Yellow Journalism"?

Rau

I think these guys are helping the people who may potentially want to blow something up. The average tom, dick and harry do not even know what is inside these tanks, let alone where they always sit. So why help them.... This is exactly what the pittsburgh bogus news writers are doing by saying where these places are... Don't you think terrorists didn't consider this before, if they didn't, they sure can read.. It's just like helping a criminal rob a house... Maybe he knows they have valuables, but if someone tells him more, his sure likely to break in then...

csxcophotographer

The American steel industry collapsed in the 1970s and
-80s because of the complacency of labor and management,
excess capacity, outmoded facilities, competition
from mini-mills and foreign producers. And huge
pension liabilities.

Let's not romanticize the dirty smokestacks
of heavy industry. Before air pollution controls
became commonplace, the foul air was a serious
public health issue.

It came at a high price, but Pittsburgh's air
and water are much cleaner today than they were
40 years ago.

Dave


TrackOne Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
>
> China is ready to step in and produce all of our
> chemical needs. All we need is a paranoid media
> stiring up the public. Why produce dangerous
> chemicals here when the Chinese can produce them?
> The industry will move production overseas before
> taking steps as outlined in this article. We did
> the same thing with dirty polluting steel in
> Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's population declined from
> 650,000 in 1950 to 325,000 today.

This also shows that these mud rakers dont do good research. If they had they would know BinLaden (if he is still alive) and his terrorist cronies at the top made there big money early on in global shipping logistics. they know the shipping industry well. The terroroists are also against all of the west, not just us. China has delt with them in thier west half of the country for years. They choose the method of destruction on 9-11 for the biggest global impact. A few tanks cars at a chemical plant will not affect the globe. From what I have seen on documentries on the terrorists (real documentries not related to te news media) The terroroists have more interest in hitting oil tankers over there Most of the oil comes through a couple of narrow points. Block those points for months with a few sunk tankers-screw the entire world.

They would also realize that with approximatley 15 million illeagal aliens in this country coming and going as they wish. Stop that probelm and thier will be no need to be worried about soft targets.

Then again, if they realized that, The mud raking media would be out of big over blown sensational stories that write themselves.

We can't secure our 2000 mile stationary border with Mexico how the heck are we supposed to secure 100,000 miles of active rail lines not to mention nearly 500,000 freight cars?

mattsway Wrote:
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> We can't secure our 2000 mile stationary border
> with Mexico how the heck are we supposed to secure
> 100,000 miles of active rail lines not to mention
> nearly 500,000 freight cars?

Always my argument against the war on drugs. Government wants to keep drugs out of the US but can't even keep them out of prisons. Unfortunately we are not safe. Unless we'd like to live in our houses and not go out, we will not be secure. It's only bad ignorant journalism designed to elicit a predictable poorly thought out reaction. If there were an easy way to protect all of our dangerous places they would be protected. The best protection we have against terrorism is the people of this world, and their eyes and ears.

That's are great news media,go out and do stuff like that and then tell the terrorist were to go and how to do it! We need more guys like that on are side.

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TrackOne Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > ...Pittsburgh's population declined from
> > 650,000 in 1950 to 325,000 today.
>
> And what did the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's
> circulation drop from/to in the same period? Is it
> possible they have a circulation problem they are
> trying to deal with by a little "Yellow
> Journalism"?
>
> Rau

I do not know when the Tribune-Review began publication nor do I know its circulation numbers, but it has increased its circulation over the past 15 years in spite of declining population in the Pittsburgh area through the following:

Initially, it was the Greensburg Tribune-Review with its primary circulation in Westmoreland County located to the east of Pittsburgh. During the 1992 strike of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Press, the Tribune-Review made its inroads into the Pittsburgh market. The strike provided the opportunity to develop a substantial customer base.

Subsequently, it opened an office in the former Clark Candy Building located along the NS Fort Wayne Line in Pittsburgh's North Side.

The Tribune provides free and very cheap subscriptions. It may include in its circulation free subscriptions to people who don't want them.

More recently, the Tribune-Review introduced the Trib, PM, a weekday tabloid-style evening paper which is part news, part sports and part gossip/entertainment/fluff.

The logo showing the locomotive front and crossbucks made to resemble a skull & crossbones is offensive. But that's the Tribune-Review way...

Dave

Anvilhead Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> chuchubobnv Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I'm sure that San Fran Nan & Stinky Harry Reid
> > will fix the problem! Ya right!!
>
> Very intelligent post. Thanks for sharing.

My point was that the Democrats have been using the issue of port and railroad security as a campaign issue to criticize the President and the Republicans, for the last 5 years, without proposing any solutions or funding for the problem. Did you notice that it wasn't part of their agenda for the "first 100 hours"? The point is that we don't have enough GDP to provide 100% security against terrorism inside of our borders. We need to secure the borders and exercise stringent controls over who and what crosses them. We also need to kill as many of the militant fanatics as possible where they are now instead of waiting for them to get here. If they can get to a chemical plant or a rail yard with a weapon it won't make any difference if the gate is locked or the plant/yard has armed guards.

So what does a militant fanatic look like?

Dave



chuchubobnv Wrote:


> My point was that the Democrats have been using
> the issue of port and railroad security as a
> campaign issue to criticize the President and the
> Republicans, for the last 5 years, without
> proposing any solutions or funding for the
> problem. Did you notice that it wasn't part of
> their agenda for the "first 100 hours"? The point
> is that we don't have enough GDP to provide 100%
> security against terrorism inside of our borders.
> We need to secure the borders and exercise
> stringent controls over who and what crosses them.
> We also need to kill as many of the militant
> fanatics as possible where they are now instead of
> waiting for them to get here. If they can get to a
> chemical plant or a rail yard with a weapon it
> won't make any difference if the gate is locked or
> the plant/yard has armed guards.

chuchubobnv Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anvilhead Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > chuchubobnv Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > I'm sure that San Fran Nan & Stinky Harry
> Reid
> > > will fix the problem! Ya right!!
> >
> > Very intelligent post. Thanks for sharing.
>
> My point was that the Democrats have been using
> the issue of port and railroad security as a
> campaign issue to criticize the President and the
> Republicans, for the last 5 years, without
> proposing any solutions or funding for the
> problem. Did you notice that it wasn't part of
> their agenda for the "first 100 hours"? The point
> is that we don't have enough GDP to provide 100%
> security against terrorism inside of our borders.
> We need to secure the borders and exercise
> stringent controls over who and what crosses them.
> We also need to kill as many of the militant
> fanatics as possible where they are now instead of
> waiting for them to get here. If they can get to a
> chemical plant or a rail yard with a weapon it
> won't make any difference if the gate is locked or
> the plant/yard has armed guards.

So the Republicans have run DC since the mid-90's and did nothing, now it's got to get done by the Dems in their first two weeks.
RR security? What's that? All the cinderdicks are laid off. To costly to keep them around. Teen-age kids in shorts and sandals rob beer cars on the main line in broad daylight and they can't even bag them...............

Anvilhead Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So the Republicans have run DC since the mid-90's
> and did nothing, now it's got to get done by the
> Dems in their first two weeks.
> RR security? What's that? All the cinderdicks are
> laid off. To costly to keep them around. Teen-age
> kids in shorts and sandals rob beer cars on the
> main line in broad daylight and they can't even
> bag them...............

My point is that folks on both sides of the aisle in congress have been playing politics with our national security since soon after 9/11. I don't agree with Bush on everything that he has done or every decision that he has made. I'm totally opposed to his stand on border security and some of the "rules of engagement" that are being used in the war. What I do admire is his steadfast determination to do what he believes to be the right thing without worrying about public opinion or political considerations. I just don't believe that the majority of Americans understand the nature of this conflict and I don't think that the news media wants us to understand it. Even if we "win" in Iraq or manage to bag Bin Laden, this war won't be over.