(The following article by Bill Toland was posted on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website on March 30.)
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Riding a new wave of concern that originated in Europe with the bombing of a Madrid commuter train, a group of state legislators is reintroducing a package of laws to bolster railroad safety in Pennsylvania.
The proposed laws are being touted by Rep. Rick Geist, the Blair County Republican who chairs the House Transportation Committee, as anti-terror measures necessary to keep railway workers and passengers safe and reassure the communities through which the trains pass regularly.
The measures are similar to two existing bills that, a year after their introduction, appear to be stalled. One is House Bill 173, which would appropriate $5 million to expand the emergency system that monitors railroad crossings.
The other is House Bill 1117, which toughens penalties for people trespassing on railroad property.
The bills also would create a Pennsylvania Railroad Authority, which would assist short-line and small passenger rail companies in acquiring improvement bonds and leasing locomotives. That idea has been floating around Harrisburg, in various forms, since at least 1993, but it’s never been adopted.
Geist said he’s optimistic that putting all of the outstanding measures in a single package might spur action.
He’s also hoping that the Madrid bombing, as well as recently foiled bombing plots in France, the Philippines and England, will drive home the notion that railroad safety is serious business.
The prospects of terror attacks against U.S. and Pennsylvania railroad infrastructures are “real and need to be addressed,” he said.
Bombs tore apart commuter trains in Spain’s capital on March 11, killing nearly 200, and less than two weeks later, an unexploded bomb was found buried beneath a railway line in France.
Yesterday, police in the United Kingdom arrested eight men and seized a half-ton of potential bomb-making materials, and in the Philippines, security officials seized 80 pounds of TNT, thwarting train station and shopping mall bombings that the country’s president said would have rivaled the Madrid attacks.
Pennsylvania has more miles of railroad track than any state except Illinois. Geist said the only way to effectively monitor those thousands of miles of track is to train railroad workers in emergency response and weapons and bomb detection.
Railroad workers are “the first line of defense,” he said. “They know when something is amiss.”
The proposed laws have the support of the Keystone State Railroad Association and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engines and Trainmen, who also supported previous versions of the bills.