MONTREAL - Reports that the RCMP had arrested two suspects in a train bombing plot had some local rail passengers spooked and others less-so.
One interviewed by CTV Montreal said that she was riding on the train when she learned of the plot, an experience she described as unnerving.
Some expressed a notion that more security is needed to protect train passengers, while a roughly-equal number said that long security checks would be inconvenient.
“There should be security, metal detectors like you go into airports, they check you, someone is watching you, there’s cameras. But here there’s nothing, no security, as you can see,” said one young man.
Another felt that more stringent security checks are likely inevitable, but not welcome.
“It’s certainly coming but I enjoy that things are free in Canada and that we don’t have to go throught so much security as they do in the U.S.,” she said.
And one said that slowing trains further in a country with one of the lesser-fast rail systems, is a non-starter.
“What’s happening in the airports is not what I want to see in the train stations. It’s quite a long ride between Toronto and Montreal and I do it often and I certainly don’t want to add another hour of security checks,” she said.
Some Via employees say that security staff is permitted to check bags in some situations, but generally do not do so.
