Hi Craig and All, Just some comments from my end about "Railroad Police Officers." Railroad police are one of the oldest policing professions around. They came into being around the time of the Civil War to protect their high-value shipments of cash from train robbers. Remember, there were no highways back in those days and everything...people and goods, all moved by rail. Allen Pinkerton, one of Chicago's first detectives, and later of the famed Pinkerton Detective Agency, was one of the first railroad cops hired by the railroads to protect them from losses. Today, railroad cops are a highly trained group of professionals whose mission is still to protect the railroads from loss. Everything that we see and touch in our lives at some point moves by rail, either directly on railcars or by Intermodal/Piggyback trains that move semi-trailers/containers in dedicated trains. These Intermodal trains are also known "Wal-marts on Wheels," especially to the organized gangs that try to steel from them. Nothing is more challenging (and dangerous) to a railroad cop than trying to protect a multi-million dollar shipment from street gangs as the train slowly moves through Chicago's inner-city neighborhoods on a hot summer night. As we all know, a number of our very own and very talented officers have left our local departments for the superior pay and benefits packages that the railroads provide. One of my favorite is Little Snot-Nose Jimmy Haskell, a former NICTD Transit cop and now a CSX Police and K-9 officer. All of these officers are academy trained and state certified within their state of primary employment. Many times, however, they will get dispatched out of state for policing assignments to other "hot spots" within their rail system. For example...some Chicago rail cops can get sent to Detroit for special ops, meaning thieves are kicking their butts in that city so they need to put more cops in that hot zone to make arrests. It is true that railroad police are employed by private corporations (CSX, NS, CN, CP, BNSF, UP), not municipalities, but they get their lawful policing authority from the U.S. Government and an omnibus crime bill that provides them a federal authority to make arrests in LA, Detroit, Dallas, Miami...wherever they are dispatched, without the need to be certified by every particular state they work in. And, when a railroad police officer is killed in the line of duty, that officer's name is honored and etched on the wall at the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, D.C.. And who in the heck are those rail related cops from government agencies??? Well, ME for one! We are all familiar with our city, county and state police. We are all familiar with the FBI, DEA, ATF and the US Marshal's Service (hey Tim Craigin!!...another fine snot-nosed boy, I tell ya!), but there is a plethora of other law enforcement entities out there that are sworn, certified and go out and serve like everybody else...DNR-Conservation, Tribal Police, Gaming Commission, even the U.S. Library of Congress has a police force (which merges with the US Capitol Police in October). More locally, certain state and municipal corporations (entities created by state statute) have full arrest and investigative powers...NICTD Transit Police, or the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District Transit Police Department (try saying that three times real fast) is my place. Created in 1977 by the Indiana General Assembly, our governing board is made up of county council members and county commissioners from Lake, Porter, LaPorte, and St. Joseph counties...the Governor also has an appointment to our board. We have a bi-state authority and routinely make arrests in Chicago, use Chicago PD lock-ups and testify in the Cook County Criminal Courts. Interestingly enough, our officers work within 25 jurisdictional police districts in two states utilize 16 prisoner reception sites and we appear at 11 primary court locations. No wonder we have to have 3 radios in our squad cars just to talk to everybody. Municipal public transit cops can be seen around the country in locations like San Francisco (BART); Dallas (DART); Washington, D.C. (Metro); Philly (SEPTA); Boston (MBTA) and Cleveland (GCRTA) to name a few. Other cities have dedicated transit policing units from their respective police departments such as Chicago's CTA and New York's MTA. Some other examples of governmental agencies having police departments would be the South Bend Airport (where you are a police officer and a firefighter...which is pretty cool stuff), Indianapolis Airport Police, Indianapolis Public Schools Police Department and even the Indiana School for the Deaf has a sworn and academy trained police force. Hope this gives everybody some sort of insight as to the various disciplines in law enforcement and how they all have a specific mission to accomplish for their respective agencies. I give the railroad cops a "thumbs up" for membership and welcome them with open arms as a brother and sister law enforcement officer. Thanks for listening to me everybody! This has been fun! I really have to run because "Oprah" is coming on and I don't want to miss her...okay, nor do I want to miss, "All my Chilling's, One Life to Shit Up or General Hospitality." Your doing a great job, Craig! Be safe everybody! Ride with Pride! Bob