(The following story by Rebecca Smith appeared on the WQAD website on October 7, 2010.)
GALESBURG, IL – “I like meeting people.,” said Larry Heitkemper, who’s traveled the U.S. and Canada pretty much entirely by train. “There’s some neat, eccentric people on trains.”
He says security concerns on trains seem to have diminished in recent months, especially.
“Now, with this stuff that’s gone on in Europe, it’s probably going to be stepping-up again,” he said. “It’s scary.”
That’s exactly what’s happening this weekend.
On Friday, rail passengers can expect to see uniformed officers at train stations.
The exercise, called RailSafe, includes all local police agencies along the Amtrak routes involved in the exercise, including stops in Illinois and Iowa.
“It’s a good idea,” said passenger, Vicki Ryan. “It’s kinda scary riding back and forth all the time.”
When the trains roll into the station, the security is soon to go up at stations like the one in Galesburg, where hundreds of people come everyday to travel to some part of the country.
Passengers like Larry think trains aren’t likely targets for terror.
“We have a really nice subway system in D.C., and millions of people ride it and I would think something like that would be a target more than Amtrak train that carries a couple hundred people.”
That’s why he doesn’t worry too much about the fear associated with potential terror attacks.
“You can’t live in fear.”
He chooses to just take in the beauty of the journey.
“It’s nice to slow things down once in a while and look at the view from 10-feet above, rather than 10,000-feet in the air.”
In Iowa, Amtrak has stations at Burlington, Fort Madison, Mount Pleasant, Ottumwa, Osceola and Creston.