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You probably don't hate planes, you hate the TSA. What's to stop a populist gov't from mandating TSA-style "security" on the railway?



No, I hate planes. They destroy Earth, they're unpleasant (though once you're cruising they're OK I guess), they land miles and miles away from where I actually want to be, and my folding bike (a Brompton) is to big to be a carryon for a plane, but is fine for a train.

When travelling as a family a train is nice. We can linger in the observation car, hang out in the snack car (RIP bar car and dining car :-( ), and enjoy the scenery.

I suspect the US will indeed move towards more and more restrictive security on trains (there's money to be made in pointless security theater after all!) But, as noted elsewhere, trains have the advantage of predictable motion (pretty hard to crash a train into a building!) and being able to stop anywhere without killing everyone on board.


A train doesn't go off its rails into the Pentagon.

TSA does actually (very rarely) check passengers before letting them board trains. I think I've seen it about once when I used to take a train roughly 2/wk for a year.


I had some TSA guy's dog randomly sniff my bag in the mid-naughties at San Clemente once. I think he was hoping he'd find weed.




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