Amtrak to Public: Trains are Dangerous; Terrorists may Strike
Amtrak, America’s passenger train service, is working hard to scare the crap out of people who ride trains. Widescreen TVs in Amtrak stations are running a lengthy video produced seemingly to convince us that terrorists may strike your train at any moment.
And then, the video – complete with music score, of course – dances into a perfunctory and predictable interview with the head of Amtrak’s police force, John O’Connor (who really needed coaching to be on-camera), and a completely irrelevant segment on the care and feeding of police K-9 dogs.
Why? What’s the purpose? What’s is the basis for the scare video? And, yes, that’s what it is … a SCARE video.
Well, nothing more timely than Amtrak working hard to spend $1-billion in funding and an apparently groundless Homeland Security report that claims there is growing worry over Amtrak’s vulnerability to terrorism.
While there have been specific security concerns for the country’s transportation infrastructure, the geniuses at Homeland Security strung together a series of “what-ifs” after visiting four (out of 500) Amtrak stations and took several years to prepare a report that your Amtrak regional train may be a prime terror target.
Huh, what?! Amtrak did nothing about security for years after the 9-11 attacks … NOTHING … but now, it’s duck and cover everybody!
What does all this new emphasis on terror equal? Well, the obvious message is that government bureaucrats believe scare tactics are the best way to assure people who ride trains, and that Amtrak’s security people saw a chance to hire their own army. I know it may sound … well, dumb, counter-intuitive and a waste of money … but, hey, they’ve got 1-billion taxpayer dollars to spend.
Yet … and, this is what really bothers me … for Amtrak to play the “Fear-Terror-Scare” card on the public is downright sleazy and dishonest, in my opinion. And, that’s what they’ve done. There is nothing wrong with Amtrak takinig an about-face from its lethargic norm and start an effective security program in the background, where it belongs. But, what they are doing sure seems more like “security theater” to justify a fat cop budget. Don’t know about you but I’ve seen that cheap show before.
What Amtrak needed, I believe, were professional communicators to work with them to develop a clearer and more ethically grounded purpose for their campaign, other than producing what no doubt was an expensive video that sends the wrong messages. But, heck, in the Amtrak stations I visited – New York, Philadelphia and Washington – no one seemed to pay attention to the multiplex of TV screens … except me, wondering, why?
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Category: Reputation management
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I wonder if Amtrak is over reacting to the apparent attempt to derail a freight train carrying highly flammable material in Iowa in 2011, and concern by sone at Homeland Security of possibly more to come? The concern might be justified, but how they are going about it is so “Keystone cops”, in my opinion of course! Perhaps, more subtlety and professionalism would accomplish more than such blatant fear tactics.