[mythrowaway1124]

I'd take a 10 hour train trip from Chicago to LA in a heartbeat.

Security lines are shorter, and the beginning and end of a train trip both happen at a literal train station, so it's usually easier to get into and out of the city center.

[soheil]

Security lines are shorter than airports now because public is not relying on trains in the US for travel as much as airplanes yet, if that happens what makes you think there won't be TSA all over train stations making you take your shoes off before boarding?

[ams6110]

Exactly. The TSA will do that, if rail ever becomes popular.

[Gibbon1]

First thing the TSA started doing when BART was extended to the SF Airport was to start running drug dogs on BART trains and busting people for pot.

Absolutely vital that California keeps the TSA off of it's HSR

[toufiqbarhamov]

Security lines are shorter because you can’t fly a train full of jet fuel into a pair of skyscrapers.

[ams6110]

You can't do that anymore with commercial aircraft either, since they started looking the cockpit door, yet we still act like every passenger is likely to try it.

[soheil]

Sure you can't do that exact thing but who would have thought of flying planes into skyscrapers before 9/11 except a few crazies anyway? We didn't exactly have a pandemic of people flying planes into skyscrapers for decades prior.

[toufiqbarhamov]

Sure you can't do that exact thing but who would have thought of flying planes into skyscrapers before 9/11 except a few crazies anyway?

Tom Clancy? In ‘Debt of Honor’ it’s a major plot-point after all. The issue here is not that making a train into a cruise missile is hard to imagine, it’s actually impossible. You can attack the train, or use the train to attack a station or something close to the tracks, and that’s it. It’s also a purely kinetic event, rather than adding the complexity of so much fuel.