3 ms·

This cognitive dissonance is everywhere. Apparently even on HN. There are 100-200 people on a train, some have 300. No security at all. You only need an ill i

• himinlomax 5y ago
  You can crash a whole plane by poking a small hole with a tiny bomb. Put a bomb in a TGV, and you'll kill people nearby, but not in the other wagons. So it's not a particularly attractive target compared to say, a shopping mall. Terrorists planned to derail one in the 1990s by destroying rails, they were thwarted beforehand. But even if they succeeded, TGV is designed specifically to resist derailment and not fold on itself like a regular train, so it's unlikely most passengers would have been killed.
  • Ekaros 5y ago
    Your best option is likely controlled demolition of a bridge. And that needs decent number of explosive and knowledge. Plus timing. Ofc, the financial damage is quite substantial, but loss of life is in the few hundred range.
    • himinlomax 5y ago
      So it's not specific to TGV, if you can destroy such a bridge you could destroy any number of similar works, or even whole buildings. Busy commuter trains typically have more passengers.
  • GDC7 5y ago
    I don't know about the TGV and other high speed trains, but in normal trains you can move from one compartment to the other. So I stand by what I said and I claim once again that you only need one ill intentioned person with a firearm and everybody on board is basically done, they'd move across compartments and off everybody. There are thousands of trains which all have that same vulnerability, so a coordinated attack would have a toll much higher than everything seen before. People have a blindspot, they'd claim that such attack would never take place because the "production value" is not the same as explosive attacks. I don't think hoping that ill intentioned people hold "production value" as rigorous parameter when planning an attack is a valuable strategy
    • himinlomax 5y ago
      Such a person with a firearm would do the same damage in a mall than in the TGV. There is no multiplier effect, unlike in a plane.
      • GDC7 5y ago
        The amount of people per square foot surface, the fact that there is no way out and the fact that police cannot rush to the scene. It's not like a mall > There is no multiplier effect Your multiplier effect is the initial factor advantage of how easy it is to pack a firearm on a train. A depressed kid could do it, easy target to recruit online, and doesn't even need firearm training considering that it would be as easy as shooting sardines in a barrel given the physical space in a train. So basically an ill intentioned group would need to recruit 20 depressed kids , put them on 20 different trains departing at approximately the same time and they'd cause a toll in excess of everything seen before
        • himinlomax 5y ago
          Again, it's just as easy to pack a firearm in a mall. That's why the security is the same as in a mall.
          • GDC7 5y ago
            The amount of people per square foot surface, the fact that there is no way out and the fact that police cannot rush to the scene A train is not a mall.
            • zwaps 5y ago
              True, there are more people in a mall, and you don’t need a long time to move through piece by piece…. as you need for the train. What if the train stops? This can be done by any personell quickly. Doors and windows of trains can be opened everywhere, they are designed that way. Stop the train, intercom and tell people to leave the train and the situation is over. Chances are this will turn out differently than you assume
  • bambax 5y ago
    > TGV is designed specifically to resist derailment Not sure about that. In 2015 they did a demo of a new TGV line and the train derailed just by going a little too fast in a curve [0]. It killed eleven people on board and injured 42 others. The number of dead and injured is so low because there were very few people on board. If a bomb exploded on the first car of a TGV the number of casualties would be high. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckwersheim_derailment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckwersheim_derailment
    • Glawen 5y ago
      Yet it did not fold, just as parent said.
    • iggldiggl 5y ago
      65 % above the design speed of the curve isn't quite just "a little too fast".
• wasmitnetzen 5y ago
  > it's over for all those on board Is it, though? There are a lot of trains where you can't even get to the locomotive while the train is moving, and I couldn't find any train accident in modern history[1] where all passengers died. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disasters_by_death_toll#Rail_accidents_and_disasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disaster...
  • GDC7 5y ago
    Ill intentioned people would move across compartments and off everybody with a firearm.
    • zwaps 5y ago
      People have tried these kind of things, but there truly are better targets than trains. Even a bomb will accomplish relatively little, the station being a better target.
  • moogly 5y ago
    You can't escape from an attacker on a moving train.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • sschueller 5y ago
      You can eve pull the emergency brake and smash the emergency windows. You can't get out of a plane while in flight and it is also hard when it's on the ground.