[PRCo] Re: crossing the border

[Fred Schneider]

John:

You need to spend more time in Europe.  No one checks the ID cards.  Going from
one European Union (EU) country to another, no checks are made unless a nation
suspects that a particular person might be coming that way.

The first thing I noticed was a agreement between the three low countries
(Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium) which wiped out the border checks.  That
might have been as far back as the late 1980s or early 1990s.  Of course, if you
flew in you would be checked at the airport and if your drove or took the train
in from France or Germany you would be checked.  There were still customs and
immigration offices at the ferry terminals checking people coming in from the
United Kingdom.

Next the customs and immigration people disappeared from all the EU to EU border
check points.  All that were left were the buildings with dust on the windows.
But they still had banks to exchange money.   And if you really wanted a stamp
in your passport, you could park the car and walk into an office and ask the
policeman to dig out the stamp and stamp pad.  I think they still had a lot of
people for a while to handle inter-country cargo shipments but that too
disappeared.

And then, about three years ago or may four?, all of the individual currencies
from about a dozen countries were replaced by the Euro and the banks also
vanished.  Now, in many places, the only remaining service is a money access or
cash machine, usually tied into all of the major networks (PLUS, CIRRUS and
credit cards).  I recall one border crossing over the Rhein north of Strasbourg
where there was a Welcome to Germany sign in one direction, and nothing in the
other telling you that you had left Germany and were now in France.

To the outsider who is not tuned in to foreign politics, the border crossings
today are no different than going from Pennsylvania into Ohio.

The crossings into non-EU contries still require checks, some are simple and
some are ... well ... let me describe going from Estonia into Russia last
summer.  Everyone on the bus already had a prepared border card made up by the
tour broker.  But the Russian immigration people still required us to make up
another.  Then they took both.  If you got the man, he dutifully filed both.  If
you got the woman, she threw the duplicate in the trash.  Our tour guide bribed
the Russians ... I think it was only about $2.00 a head for everyone on the bus
... but that expedited matters and stopped them from passing all our cameras and
film through the x-ray machine.  As an aside, the machine was dusty ... I don't
think they bothered to use it, they just collected bribes from everyone.  The
whole process took several hours ... one hour for our group and at least another
hour as each automobile ahead of our bus was checked and we inched forward 17
feet at a time.  We felt sorry for the cars stuck in the line behind our bus ...
they simply didn't move an inch for an hour.   And what was it like coming out
of Russia and into Finland on the train?  What border?

John:  Just wait until Carol comes home from Siberia in several weeks and tells
you all about it.

John Swindler wrote:

> Your comment, Harold, about everything changing:
>
> I realized that the world had changed in the fall of 1990 when a former East
> German freighter showed up at the Port of Rotterdam to haul US military
> cargo to Saudi Arabia.  And how did some of the US military cargo arrive in
> Rotterdam??  It was coming up from the Manheim area on flatcars still
> lettered DR.  (Many US military vehicles were also floated down the Rhein in
> barges, which was also a surprising change from our reliance on highways in
> the US.  I don't recall any convoys nor commercial truck movements)
>
> And concerning borders, several of us took advantage of the low country 5
> day pass, and their was no border check going into Belgium nor Luxemburg.  I
> may have been the only person in my unit that actually brought their
> passport to Europe - otherwise the military ID card served as our identity
> card, but was never checked.  For our travels, I recommended using a
> driver's license for ID purposes to help blend in with the crowd should
> something happen.
>
> Concerning police in NY and NJ going after railfan photographers, I suspect
> its all about the money.  The feds have made billions available for
> security, and now certain management level types are trying to justify
> getting a piece of the action.  Besides, its a lot safer going after
> railfans then going after actual criminals.  With an apology for being
> cynical about this.
>
> John
>
> >From: "Harold G." <transitmgr2 at earthlink.net>
> >Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> >Subject: [PRCo] crossing the border
> >Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 20:54:17 -0500
> >
> >Greetings to Ed and Fred
> >About crossing the border.   Coming to the USA is no easy job.
> >I withhold any comments about recent changes,
> >
> >When I first went to Canada as a high school student, I had no
> >drivers license or photo ID.  Took the overnight CP train from Boston
> >to Montreal.  I had no passport.  I took my birth certificate but
> >no one asked for it.
> >
> >When I first went to Juarez Mexico from ElPaso, I took the PCC
> >across the bridge.  This was l960.  No problems or check in
> >People from Mexico had work permits or were shopping.  The
> >seats on the PCC were turned the long way so that you faced
> >the aisle
> >
> >In l953 I used the Tunnel bus to Windsor from Detroit.  The first
> >of many visits.  Coming back you exited the bus and walked thru
> >an immigration building.
> >
> >Boy has Washington changed all this.
> >
> >Now go to Europe.   No passports or immigration within the
> >European community.  Free movement for free people.
> >Even before there was never anything too involved.  For a while
> >in the late l980's, France wanted a visa after some terror attacks.
> >Even then many local trips had no inspection.  You could take the
> >local EMU from Brussels to Lille with no checks.  Or walk over
> >the border from the end of the Geneva tram.   Or ride an international
> >bus across the 3 way border at Aachen, France and Belguim
> >
> >Going into the east you needed a visa to go to Poland, Czekslovak,
> >Hungary or Romania.  I always went ti the enbassy in Wash DC.
> >But this is what I did when I went to Australia.  Nice people in the
> >embassy and at the border.  They all had relatives in the USA
> >
> >East Germany and East Berlin was something else.  They ran a jail
> >for a nation.  They collected West German hard currency and gave
> >you worthless east money.  At the subway crossing in Berlin,
> >they took your passport away and you sat sometimes as long as
> >an hour.  East Germany may have been worse than Russia.
> >
> >But once you were in, I was never bothered riding trams or trains.
> >I used good sense about photo taking.  Now NY and NJ wants to
> >play police state about train photos.  Metra in Chicago says OK
> >for such photos.  Its the Police that are doing all this.in NY and NJ.
> >
> >Small cities in Easr Germany often had few English speakers.
> >On a visit to the tram in Karl Marx City I encountered none.  So
> >we talked street car with lots of gestures.
> >
> >I visited Romania on a trade mission but had no problem with
> >the officials.   On the way out on an overnight sleeper to Budapest,
> >I counted 13 Romanians check every thing three times.  Then we
> >crossed into Hungary and one Hungarian Sgt did every thing.  He
> >spoke German, English,Russian as well as Romanian and Hungarian.
> >This was when both were still Communist.
> >
> >The Romanians were proud of their transit work.  Very crowded and old
> >but trying.  The Romanian bus manufacturer actally was trying to
> >sell buses in the USA.   Two went to Nassau County  They made
> >their own subway cars..did not use the Russian car forced on
> >Budapest and Prague.  And the tramway actually built articulated
> >lrvs for Cairo to earn hard cash.  I operated this car on the streets
> >of Bucharest.  I checked closely to see if I was followed
> >in Bucharest.  I was not.  I rode all over town.
> >
> >On recent visits to East Germany every thing is now normal German.
> >
> >Interesting to note that none of the East German airline Interflug
> >merged with Luftshana.  No planes, no crews. no nothing.
> >Interflug formerly flew every where in the world.
> >
> >But DB rail continued to use East crews.   In East Berlin, I only found one
> >East Berlin manager on the combined BVG.  He was a young guy
> >who ran the East Berlin subway shop.
> >
> >Harold Geissenheimer
> >
> >
> >