X-ray machines at train stations in Europe?
 

It's been many years since I've ridden a train in Europe. What kind of security is there? Is it similar to airport security with X-ray machines? Or are we just crossing our fingers?

The Eurostar has security. Some Spanish train stations have X-ray machines but they don't always use them.

One of the good things about train travel in Europe (and elsewhere) is that in general you can just show up a few minutes ahead of time and board the train. I have never crossed my fingers when doing so and have no plans to start.

I have not been to every country in Europe so I can answer only for the few that I have visited.

Yes, in Spain (Barcelona and Madrid) for high speed trains.
No, in the train stations that I have to in France, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, UK, and Belgium.

In light of recent events, French authorities say they are going to test machines in one of the train stations (in addition to the Eurostar screening) for the TGV lines. No date has been given.

It's probably a lot more secure than when you drive a car.

Currently, only the high speed long distance trains have enhanced security; luggage screening (x-ray machines and checking tickets before boarding. Regional trains are still open, but because of the current situation, you can expect security to be tightened.

The Eurostar between London and NW Europe has airport-style security: the unrelated railway service with the same brand name between major Italian cities doesn't.

Outside Spain, that's just about it. Europe's railway system simply isn't set up for universal physical inspection of bags and passengers, and would collapse if it were.

If it did collapse through unnecessary security, the resultant carnage on the road system would be infinitely greater than the worst fantasies of Islamophobe neurotics. A typical holiday weekend in the UK 30 years ago, for example, used to produce more road traffic fatalities than last week's Paris massacre.

Britain's current 3.5 road deaths per year per 100,000 people isn't spectacularly lower than America's 11.6 just because we drive safer cars, more responsibly - though that's an important part of the reason. It's because we don't use cars as much: public transport - with or without pointless security checks - is far safer.

If Americans had a proper public transport system and drove properly-maintained cars as competently and unhysterically as we do, the 36,000 people killed on American roads ever year (that's one 9/11 every single month, every single year) would fall by 25,000.

If the USA was the size of that small island where you reside, then perhaps there would be a better public tranporation system. But for now that's not going to happen.

In the dark years of Italian political terrorism, the most bombed site was the the long tunnel on the old mountain line between Bologna and Florence (as well as the Bologna station). For years policemen boarded trains and checked that every piece of baggage had an owner on board. Apparently it was enough to stop bombs, but it was a wholly different kind of terrorism.

I would add that a lot of stations - I am thinking to Firenze SMN or Zürich HBF - are not physically separated from their surroundings and setting up airport-style checks would need rebuiliding the station. In some places the station underground passages are used more by residents crossing the track areas than by travelers actually boarding trains.

It looks they already got what they want: creating senseless fear among those godless decadent Westerners. If a substantial part of the public would react as the OP, large parts of Europe would come to a standstill.
Even the station in my medium-sized city has some 60.000 passengers per day. Imagine the queues when each of them had to go through airport-style security checks.

I don't think the machines would be practical in just about any station I can think of, not to mention the fact that it would be ridiculous from the standpoint of security to just set this up in the stations of Paris, Berlin, Brussels or Milan and not in every other station along the way where these trains stop. And then there is the protection of the tracks along the whole line... It just never ends.

There actually was a bomb on a TGV about 20 years ago (near Lyon, I think). It blew a hole in the side of the car in the baggage area but what was totally remarkable and a great relief was that the train didn't even derail.

As flanner and others have said, it would be completely impractical to introduce security at every station on the UK network - according to this article there are 2,533 of them:

http://www.theguardian.com/news/data...ns-listed-rail

The underground would be easier as there are already barriers but it would introduce huge delays and chaos at the busier stations, not to mention the cost of extra personnel.

... and that's only the security you need for the international and high-speed lines. Every morning and every evening millions and millions of commuters use the train and - as Madrid has shown - are an easy target. It is a total illusion to think 100 percent safety can be guaranteed. There is no total safety and never has been.
The worrying part is one attack makes people afraid of using public transport, while it's obvious that the individual chances something happening are negligible. Those same people have no concerns getting every day into their car, knowing nothing about the state of mind of their fellow road users.

The fact that we are even discussing this tells me that these dupes have won a battle.

The fact that the dolts in the Republican race are talking about keeping immigrants out (and not one of them a native American) tell me that these dupes have won a battle.

Look, there are 1,500 million muslims in the world if they were all so bad we would be ankle deep in blood. Clearly these dupes arn't Muslim they are just dupes.

The dupes win when we change what we do.

Trains are safe.

I can't imagine how they would do that. We had a few police on our train from Paris to Germany in Oct.

A lot of incoherent thinking on display here. There are luggage checks on the Eurostar. Brussels has shut down its entire metro system and may continue to keep it shut for several more days (officials meeting as I type). As pointed out, Italians have occasionally found ways to monitor all luggage on certain train routes.

Horrific terror attacks have taken place on trains and in train stations within Europe, well within recent memory. They are terror targets, and people who thought they were safe taking the train turned out not to be, and have been killed or injured.

Thinking that the "terrorists have won" if we discuss facts, or don't all buy tickets to Sharm el-Sheikh (anybody even considering that to prove a point?) is just a cliche people shout when they are upset. It's like children putting their fingers in their ears and babbling to drown out the noise.

Don't be surprised if you start seeing luggage checks at European train stations.

Don't forget that many stations have no staff at all at present, or for only a few hours a day. How many security staff would you need to employ to cover all the hours when trains are arriving and departing?

There is a similar problem with reintroducing border controls. In my 30 year experience, border crossings between most Western European countries have always been fairly lightly staffed, and the interiors of vehicles never checked. How many staff would you need? How would you get over the fact that security work is often done by recent immigrants, some of whom are Muslims?

Sandra, I can't see how they would do luggage checks at European stations. There are just too many of them, many completely unmanned. The delays involved in searching everyone getting on to a commuter station at rush hour would be horrendous. It just wouldn't work. Or if it did it would drive people into their cars - and who is to say the car next to you in the jam isn't a car bomb? Are we going to have to have all cars entering a road searched? All boats on the canal system of Europe?

Better that the water sources are checked and protected.

I suspect the point is that putting luggage checks at stations, does not solve the problem. It merely makes that station less susceptible to bombing and another more so. The route cause is access to bombs and a belief in a view of a god is more important than a man's life.

Do you remember when bombs used to come in the post, so my factory put in xray machines for bombs, then bombs came in luggage, so we put in xray machines at airports, then we had the shoe bomber, so we all take out shoes off, then there was the underpants bomber........

I kid you not when I take a bike on an aircraft now they want to xray it.

And yet the large numbers of deaths that we do get come from people driving in cars (which is how these guys got about) and the suicides blew up outside the concert. So the logic should be......

No lets focus on the root cause not the result.

I have never seen an X-ray machine at a European train station. What I do see all the time is armed patrols.

Flanner -

The size of the US makes a useful national train system practically impossible for a coupe of reasons:

Distances involved are huge and flying is very often not only much faster but also much cheaper

Even driving is often faster than the train, since train tracks are not equipped for high speed trains and freight trains (most rails are owned by the freight companies) take precedence over passenger ones (which can often wait on a sideline for hours for freight trains to go buy.

The entire rail system would have to be reconstructed to be any general use - even in the northeast corridor where there are some high speed trains most of the tracks are no able to handle speeds higher than about 60 mph.

(One of the things that must be understood is that Henry Ford made cars almost universal in the US except for the very poor in the 1920s while they were still the provence only of the wealthy or upper middle class in most of the world. Changing that dependence would mean a major change in mind set about convenience.)

The federal government supports airline and roads/infrastructures - not trains - since they serve SO many more people. And most freight is moved by truck.

Only a few cities (NY, Boston, DC, Chicago, SF) have effective local train systems - that is subways or metros in city and suburbs - in some place supplemented by locally supported commuter rail. These are supported by ticket sales plus funding from states and local municipalities - very little from the federal government. And local bus service - except for a similar few cities - is also minimal.

And the necessary expenditure by the federal government to support a real national rail system would be so massive that there is no way it is evr going to happen.

They've had those for years in Spain in some stations for some long distance trains, I think since that problem several years ago where a train was bombed, as I recall (I think the line going south from Madrid). It's no different than the screening at an airport there, you put your bags through it just like you would for your carryons at airports. I think those trains they do that for have very limited stops, some high-speed trains do. Or maybe none for all I recall. I think I encountered one in Barcelona Sants or maybe it was Seville going to Madrid. But there are also ticket checks like with airlines to get past the turnstile, it isn't just anybody can walk onto the train from the quay.

I agree this isn't really feasible for trains that make a lot of stops, although I suppose they think some security is better than nothing and that terrorist would more likely board in big cities than some podunk village a couple hundred miles away.

The primary problem with the public transportation system in the US is not size, but low population density. The densely populated parts of the country do have reasonably good public transportation.

"I have never seen an X-ray machine at a European train station"

The you haven't taken the Eurostar to/from London and you haven't been in some Spanish train stations.

I was in Spain last month.

Atocha station in Madrid, which was the scene of the 2004 bomb attack, had X-ray machines for all luggage on entry, and a ticket check before access to the train - at least for the high speed trains.

Leon, which had a brand new station since I was there in 2004, had a ticket check before access to a second waiting area and the platforms. It also has an X-ray machine, but I don't remember that it was in use when I was there.

Pamplona just checked your ticket and had no X-ray machine. The train I boarded there had started in Barcelona, where there may have been checks.

it is not clear what use a ticket check is for the trains, since unless you are in Preferente class no ID is required to buy one, and if you are buying online I doubt the system can check whether you are lying.

The bus stations in San Sebastian and Burgos had no checks, except, of course, you couldn't board without a ticket.

I think a tourist tax of, say, 20 euros a day will solve all of the financing problems for extra security everywhere.

Last month we took the regional train from Seville to Córdoba and both stations had X Ray machines.

Thank you for all of the input. I don't deny it would be a logistics nightmare to have security on trains, but again, I certainly would be more than happy to arrive early and wait longer to board, if it meant peace of mind.

And Flanner, as Robert said, I don't live in a country the size of yours, so you can't really compare the two. Not to mention the fact that I myself live in the Midwest US, and train travel in this part of the country just isn't going to happen. Too spread out.

Dukey has a good point that trains are probably safer than driving a car. But at least in my car I can control some of the variables. I don't speed. I wear a seatbelt. I don't drive drunk. I generally don't drive after midnight (which is when most of the traumas arrive in the ER where I work), etc. I just feel like if terrorists are announcing to the media that they're going to be targeting trains, we should try to control some of the variables here as well.

And once again, I don't think fear is their goal. I think death and destruction of the "infidel" is their goal.

I'm hoping to see some added security at least in major cities in the coming months. Practical or not, this is the age we live in.

Thanks again to all who have chimed in.

It doesn't matter how many variables you "control" the other idiot can cause an accident if you're driving.

We're all going to die sometime, the trick is to enjoy the time you have. I'm sorry you can't board a train with "peace of mind" without some added security, but I suspect most regular train users are quite happy with the current situation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ailway_systems

I rather suspect the number of people killed due to technical faults far exceed terrorist attacks but I can find no data.

I don't think Daesh have declared themselves to be especially anti trains, if anything they seem to have a thing about the outside of football matches and inside of rock concerts.

"if terrorists are announcing to the media that they're going to be targeting trains" you may be right, I must have missed it, what did they say precisely?

Who knew they didn't like Stephenson but do like Benz as they seem to drive to most of their bombing

I suspect the issue is two fold
1) The cause more disruption by bombing one train than one car
2) the governments can appear to stop more attacks by defending one train rather than one car

I'd chill myself. The UK has been under attack by religious groupings all 55 years of my life, if I let it change negatively anything I did I'd be amazed. What it probably makes me do more is to look out for my fellow humans.

I have through X-rays in trainstations in China
It is possible obviously but at short term it is quite nightmarish to organize. Remember the queues we had in all airports following 11 / 9.

Now it goes smoothly : lots of control checks lots of people and yes we probably pay 20 euros when we travel by plane to finance it.

Why not make checks in all train stations ? Would create jobs if no guarantee for safety.

i can create job, switch off all diggers and give all road workers a spoon.....

"Would create jobs if no guarantee for safety."

For heaven's sake, isn't the ridiculous (not to mention infuriating) TSA security theater enough without inventing another one? But if you live in France maybe you haven't had the pleasure.

It is impossible to have security checks at every station. Many stations are also passages from one part of a town to another, have multiple entrances, and platforms, shops on them restaurants even. Our local station is on a single track railway. The station is unmanned and forms a route from one part of town through to another for pedestrians. There is no building, no barriers. You would need to install two places to check the bags of passengers getting trains four times an hour. Maybe 3 passengers each way during the day, considerably more in the mornings and evenings. It would cost considerably more than €20 a passenger to pay for that, and be a boring job in between trains, making searchers less sharp when they had to check.
The next station down has three tracks. One our local train and two for intercity/international trains. Again it is unmanned and has even more entrances.
Utrecht station forms part of the shopping centre. Does everyone have to go through security just to go shopping?

It is a truly impossible thing to do. And I am grateful for that. I am going to die one day, whether that is in my bed or at the hands of a lunatic I can't say, but until I keel over I refuse to submit myself to even more spurious security checks, or give up more of the freedoms we are supposed to be fighting for.
They have already proved that getting a bomb on a plane is ridiculously easy, despite so called security checks, and that applies not only at third world airports - bombs can be smuggled just as easily as drugs are - and believe me drugs are smuggled on passenger planes daily.

And as I already pointed out -- you don't have to blow up the train, just the tracks to create havoc.

I don't want security checks on trains either. The Eurostar is an exception due to the long underwater tunnel.

If Americans had a proper public transport system and drove properly-maintained cars as competently and unhysterically as we do, the 36,000 people killed on American roads ever year (that's one 9/11 every single month, every single year) would fall by 25,000.>

More drivel from the Cotswold Hill - no more valid an analogy than between using horse-drawn carts and motor cars.

What is the death rate in Scotland per mile driven? That may be a better comparison - an inter-city rail system here just ain't economical feasible (as it seems not to be in Britain which IME for its size and population has the worst train system in Europe - even worse than Spain, a much less densely populated country.

any occasion to attack the U.S. is what flimflanner is up to and we should all take it in good fun but not truth - more jaw flapping - now if we could just harnass that hot air coming out of the Cotswold Hills the whole world could be energy independent.

There have been nearly no trains blown up from inside the train - the Thalys attempt failed - like kerouac says the tracks are more a place to scrutiny and I think there may be more scrutiny of those and undercover security of passengers fitting a certain profile than we think - hopefully!

Can anyone think of a train blown up from inside? Maybe Atocha?

I have read that the French train system is contemplating some type of luggage checks at major train stations. They might come to the conclusion it isn't helpful, but they are thinking about it.

I've also read that an Italian company has developed a kind of huge bag which can hold up to 20 suitcases, be closed, and then if a bomb goes off in one of the suitcases, it only destroys the other suitcases, nothing beyond. This was developed for luggage holds in planes, but could be used on trains. (Although wouldn't be of any help in the situation where assassins carrying machine guns board a train.)

I'm all for pursuing criminals (and I view terrorists as criminals) but I think if people really don't want obnoxious layers of security then they need to be politically vocal about reframing the response to terrorism in some other than "who is winning?" terms. Once it becomes important "not to let the terrorists win," then politicians are inevitably going to reach for tools that extend the violence and try to build fortresses, and these sorts of responses can be worse than futile. They can fuel more terrorism.

So dropping the "we can't let the terrorists win" and focusing instead on pursuing criminals and understanding what is causing the attraction to terrorism and draining the life from that is more likely to strengthen an open society.

Pal, you have forgotten the London bombings of 2005, when three bombs were detonated on tube trains, and one bomb on a bus. There were 52 killed and over 700 injured.

OK - I thought they were in stations except for the bus. thanks for updating me.

>Can anyone think of a train blown up from inside?

The one in Appennine Base Tunnel in 1984:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_904_bombing