New Jersey Rail Station Tests Metal Detectors

Commuters heading to work in Manhattan walked through metal detectors Tuesday at a busy train station and fed their bags into X-ray machines at the start of a test of an airport-style security screening program.

The $1-million test program is a response to the train bombings in Madrid and London.

The program at the Exchange Place station is designed to see how well the technology works for large numbers of daily rail travelers. The equipment was desensitized so keys, loose change and cellphones wouldn’t set off alarms.

The scanners are intended to detect large quantities of metal, as in the explosives vests used by suicide bombers in the Middle East, said Doug Bauer, an official with the Department of Homeland Security.

In an effort to keep passengers moving quickly through the system, commuters won’t be required to take off their shoes or empty their pockets. The screening process should take about one minute, officials said.

Commuter Timothy Warren said that since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack across the Hudson River, he still got “a little nervous going that way” and he thought the 30 seconds it took to be screened was acceptable.

“But if it gets a little slower, like if it takes three to five minutes, then it will be a pain,” said Warren, 38, a computer systems engineer from Summit, N.J.

“It didn’t take as long as I thought it would,” said Jessica Salles, 31, a lawyer headed to Manhattan who was surprised that just her bag was scanned. “What about my coat? It seems like a false sense of security.”

If the test is considered successful, similar equipment could be used on the rest of the Port Authority Trans-Hudson train system and on other mass transit systems around the country, authorities said.

A second phase of the program at a yet-to-be-named rail station will test bomb-detection technology such as infrared cameras in checking passengers from a distance.