Blumenthal, Booker Point to Unsuccessful Attack for Call for TSA in Trains

Richard Blumenthal and Cory Booker are using a thwarted attack on a train in Paris as reason to call for more TSA presence in trains.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are urging the TSA to “to implement security and safety improvements … to our country’s public transportation and passenger rail systems” that the duo said were “mandated by Congress in 2007 but still not implemented.”

“This effort comes on the heels of an attempted terrorist attack on a Paris-bound train last week in which three Americans successfully subdued the attacker,” Blumenthal’s office said in a statement previewing an appearance by the Connecticut senator at Hartford’s Union Station.

That’ll fix Amtrak’s woes: to make taking the train as humiliating and time-consuming as flying.

As it happens, DHS’ Inspector General is looking at what TSA is doing for Amtrak security right now.

So the Senators might wait until that is done.

More interesting, however, the National Transportation Safety Board still hasn’t solved the May 12 derailment in Philadelphia that killed 8 and wounded 200. Last we heard, NTSB was asking, again, for trains (both freight and passenger) to be equipped with the kind of recording equipment that would help determine the cause of accidents.

Call me crazy, but passengers stand at least a decent chance of thwarting a gun attack on a train. Not so something wrong with the train itself.

Maybe we should work on fixing the trains themselves — and while we’re at it the infrastructure. Only then should prioritizing this kind of policing take precedence.