What about passport control and security on trains?

Air travel has indoctrinated me to a litany of security measures that must be followed on airlines these days:

• arriving 2 hours early for a flight
• ensuring baggage is unlocked and under “your control” at all times
• no packing of items from a list of 40+ banned products, including bombs, guns, and knives (check…got it…leave those at home)
• no packing of hairspray and nail clippers in carry-on luggage
• queuing in long lines to go through security
• presenting the passport and boarding pass at immigration and security (multiple times)
• taking off all shoes, belts, jackets, jewelry, etc. to pass through the security area (beep beep – go back through or be “wanded”)
• removing the PC from the briefcase
• yada, yada, yada

I have this drill down now, and can anticipate the next sequence of events as if I was constructing a process flow chart. If this, then that….

Yes, it is important. Yes, it is for our safety. And yes, terrorism has caused airports and airlines to resort to this level of checking. Still….what a hassle….

Which is why I am consistently so ill prepared for the low degree of difficulty related to security and passport measures on European trains. Take our recent trip to Paris:

• No passport control: On neither the trips to/from Paris/Dusseldorf, and having passed through 3 countries in the process, was I ever required to show my passport. Not at the train station, nor on the train to the train conductor. Given the recent security issues on trains, I guess I would have expected somebody...somewhere...sometime... to request to see my passport. Doesn’t somebody want to know who I am? Better yet, I want to know who you are!
• No luggage check: I know that practically speaking this would be a huge hassle. Yet, the recent bombs on Madrid trains have shown that train travel is vulnerable. All aboard…including those suitcases.
• No security check: We just waltz onto the train…a mere 10 minutes before departure. C’est facile! Nobody checks to see what I am carrying, what is strapped to my body, what is in my luggage…

I like train travel…I like the relative ease of train travel. Which is why I am enjoying this mode of transportation. It just occurred to me, though, might it be too easy? Something tells me it is only a matter of time before that changes, too.