The Bush administration plans to begin testing techniques next month for improving passenger rail security at a station in suburban Maryland that is served by Amtrak and commuter trains running between Washington and Baltimore, government officials said. Passenger screening at the New Carrollton, Md., station will be conducted by the Transportation Security Administration, but will not be as invasive as airport searches. “No one at New Carrollton will be asked to remove their belt or shoes,” said Dan Stessel, an Amtrak spokesman. The focus of the new program, called the Transit and Rail Inspection Pilot, or Trip, is not guns or knives, but bombs, officials said. Mark O. Hatfield Jr., a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, said the issue was “a different threat, and different protocols.” Trains cannot be hijacked or crashed into buildings, officials pointed out. Full Story
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