Do roomette doors lock?

[AmtrakBlue]

I'm reading Henry's book Zephyr and yesterday was reading how his mind took off onto a locked roomette murder mystery. Thought the timing (of my reading) was funny considering this thread.

His concern about locking the room is the same as mine. How will they be able to get my attention if there's an emergency at night when I do not wear my hearing aids. Should I leave my door unlocked or not.

 

[Guest]

Speaking of inside locks, there are a LOT of people who don't lock the bathroom doors. Some of them get very angry at being surprised when the door opens. They don't seem to realize that train noise often prevents their "Occupied!" or "Just a minute!" response to knocks from being heard out in the corridor.

 

[Henry Kisor]

AmtrakBlue, I lock the roomette and bedroom doors religiously. I just inform the sleeper attendant that I'm deaf and that waking me up in an emergency will be difficult. Pounding on the door will help. I believe it can be removed from its tracks by lifting upward, but I'm not sure about that.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

AmtrakBlue, I lock the roomette and bedroom doors religiously. I just inform the sleeper attendant that I'm deaf and that waking me up in an emergency will be difficult. Pounding on the door will help. I believe it can be removed from its tracks by lifting upward, but I'm not sure about that.

I've always locked my doors, too. Then remind the SCA (it should be noted on their manifest anyway). On my latest trip, I even suggested flashing a light into the room, though that might be hard to see with the curtains drawn.

I am enjoying reading your book, btw. Though I started reading it befor my trip, I didn't have a lot of chances to read it on the trains...too much new scenery to see.

 

[Metra Electric Guest]

This is a bit of a red herring. Even a simpleton can look at a train schedule and figure out when the next long station stop is. It would be easy to execute the theft on the approach to DEN, for instance, then slip away undetected, before the theft is even discovered. Again, I'm NOT saying this happens routinely, but to imply it's impossible because trains are in motion is a canard.

I thought that a huge % of Americans couldn't read a train schedule. Other than well orchestrated jewelry heists from heiresses or the like, I'd assume much of Amtrak theft is theft of opportunity or for jollies (my friends who have worked in retail say it's middle aged middle classed matrons who get busted for shoplifting the most).

 

[neroden]

1. The roomette doors lock from the inside, for, um, "private activities".

2. There are very few cases known of thieves stealing entire suitcases speculatively. (That's a big heavy thing to steal.)

3. To prevent opportunistic thieves from rifling through your luggage, lock your bags. Even a cheapie luggage lock seems to deter them.

4. If you've got something small which you can't lock up in a big bag -- like a laptop in a laptop case -- carry your laptop case with you when you leave the room.

5. If there are two of you in the room, you can take turns leaving the room. I only worry about carrying my laptop case if we're both heading to dinner.

On the subject of security in general:

It's a basic principle of security that you have to know what "attack profile" you are protecting against. You do different things depending on what you're trying to prevent. (By the way, the CIA is completely, utterly incompetent at this -- they have no idea who they're trying to protect against or what they're trying to prevent -- and as such it is probably the least secure "intelligence" operation in the known world. Complete waste of money...)

A determined attacker who is targeting you specifically can bypass any form of keys whatsoever. Lockpicking isn't terribly hard, and electronic locks are even easier to bypass than mechanical locks. Combination locks are better (but still mostly pretty easy). Doors are generally weak, windows are weaker, and walls are often almost as easy to go through as windows. For this, bank vaults are the only really secure design. If you're facing a determined thief who's targeting you personally, then short of a bank vault, it's permanent personal guards (and even these have their problems), or "wear it around your neck".

Sometimes the goal, then, is not to prevent a break-in, but simply to know that you've had a break-in. On Amtrak, that's pretty easy; you aren't generally gone from your room long enough to not *notice* that one of your bags is missing, at which point you can report it to the attendant, etc.

Often, however -- and typically for an Amtrak passenger -- the goal is to stop *opportunistic* theft -- people who aren't targeting you, but who are looking for "easy targets". For this purpose, having heavy suitcases with locks on them is quite sufficient; the opportunistic thief will immediately look elsewhere.

 

[Eris]

Guarding against opportunistic theft of smaller things, I've enjoyed using my KYSS bag.

http://www.kyssbags.com/

It's not the most secure thing of ever, but it prevents the grab-it-and-go that seems to move backpacks to the coach restrooms with some small regularity.