Airport security

[nebnoswal]

A strange thing happened to me last weekend as I was returning home to Melbourne from a train convention in Brisbane. I had ?? dozen or so N gauge locos in my carry-on luggage. On first inspection, the operator was curious, stopped the machine, zoomed in, moved the conveyer belt backwards and forwards, but still wasn??™t happy. My bag came out and the operator immediately grabbed it and sent it through the X-ray machine again, and again. After 3 attempts of not figuring out what it was, he then asked me, and told I him ???model trains???. This was not good enough, so they were each removed from my bag for a visual inspection. After checking a Royal Scot, a 9F and a Jubilee he then believed me and didn??™t bother checking the 6 remaining boxes. As I repacked my bag, I heard him mutter to his offsider saying that he though he saw small barrel like cylinders for use in hidden pistols! More like boiler barrels to me.

 

 

[47707 Holyrood]

In this day and age, they are just doing their job. Airport security don't see many model trains pass through i would think so the shapes are new to them. TBH as it sounds like they thought they saw firearm components, (which are prohibited from airlines) then fair play to them for checking.

[Ian Fisher]

I had a like expereince with USA Homeland securities. I had bought a few CSX locos and left them in their cellophane wrapping just incase there was an issue. They claimed to have found explosive charges on my bag too from a swab they did, but still let me on my way to put my shoes back on and all that. They may be doing their job but there should be ways of doing it better maybe. I for one was paniced by the claim they had found an explosive charge on my bag it was recently purchased and not left anywhere it shouldnt have been yet they still let me through.

 

Ian

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

There are plenty of organic chemicals present in plastic products which can give a false positive for explosives - because these are organic chemicals made from the same molecular building blocks. But once the bag has been examined to determine there is no explosive present all is well as regards that flight. Whether the system is well enough organised to have flagged you as 'suspected of having handled explosives, always give this guy a good check over'; now that's another question.

 

You never know, you might have the sort of fun I did when the Baader-Meinhof gang were active. As a result of some similarity in appearance I was given the third degree on several occasions, and once spent 15 minutes in my underpants in a very cold room. (It felt like fifteen minutes anyway...)

[PMP]

Well done to the security guard for spotting them and being contientious enough to check, better safe than sorry Neb!

 

Most interesting experience I had was spending a day on an foreign airfield with the bird scaring team, where we were using firearms as part of the deterrent. When going through the checks for the homebound flight, one of the little spaniels thats paid choccky drops to sniff out explosives, comes up, wags tail and starts barking his head off having got a positive ID on a 'perp'. Que an interesting half hour or so trying to explain in a foreign language why I smelt of cordite ...

[Tony_S]

Well done to the security guard for spotting them and being contientious enough to check, better safe than sorry Neb!

 

Most interesting experience I had was spending a day on an foreign airfield with the bird scaring team, where we were using firearms as part of the deterrent. When going through the checks for the homebound flight, one of the little spaniels thats paid choccky drops to sniff out explosives, comes up, wags tail and starts barking his head off having got a positive ID on a 'perp'. Que an interesting half hour or so trying to explain in a foreign language why I smelt of cordite ...

 

 

I once observed a mistaken identity when the explosives dog (it wasn't a spaniel) at Venice airport dragged its handler over to the queue of domestic airline passengers and attacked a man's bag. I bet the passenger never attempted to take a sausage onto a plane again.

Tony

[BR60103]

I came home from England once with a transistor throttle -- the open type with no overall case and in two parts -- and security didn't say a thing. I'd even put it on the top of my carry on because I expected questions.

I came back from the US with a streetcar. The customs officer wanted to see it; he turned out to be another modeller.

[Adams442T]

Going to Chicago in September this year a travelling companion told the security crew that their detector wasn't working. They assured him that it was. He then just pulled up his right trouser leg and showed them his (mostly metal) prosthetic leg! Seemed that they had forgotten to switch it on that morning .......................................

[Burkitt]

Returning from the Transrapid test track in Germany, the x-ray operators at the Eurostar terminal in Brussels got me to unpack the diecast model of the Shanghai maglev I had bought there. One of the operators turned out to be a Marklin collector and seemed to be mainly interested in the model rather than any potential criminality.

 

More sinisterly, back in the seventies my mum was held for several hours by the police at Heathrow after returning from Northern Ireland. They never told her why she was being held, offered her a phonecall or lawyer etc. Ironically she had been there as a guest of the Department for Trade and Industry (or whatever it was back then), who were trying to persuade her that doing business in Northern Ireland was no different from any other UK region!

 

Paul