I was reading a professional rail magazine and the report of finding a shotgun shell in a coupler still has me wondering how secure our railroad infrastructure is. According to the comments associated with the article it was a spent round but that is really irrelevant. Someone made the effort to put the shell casing there. Was it kids fooling around, maybe. I have also heard horror stories of brakemen finding razor blades attached to switch stands. Again, not good for railroad operators. CP wants to place the burden on rail employees: “This type of mischief has potentially fatal consequences and serves as a reminder that employees must always be aware of their surroundings, perform thorough equipment inspections and report any suspicious activity immediately to CP police for further investigation.” Rail employees are part of the solution but they run trains and deal with the MOW. They are focused on their job, not looking for bad people who want to do bad things to the railroad. So, here I go again, how do you stop this from happening. Extra trained eyes and ears to augment the rail employees in those areas that know what to look for. Railroad employees are part of the solution but they are not out there all of the time.