Presumably if it dovetails back into the existing public court system at the prosecution level (i.e. there are railroad lawyers empowered to bring cases similar to DAs), that's still a reasonable separation of powers.
But the slope towards the government (with democratic checks and balances) ceding enforcement authority to a private party (without democratic checks and balances) seems worrisome.
In this case: yes, because it puts undue burden on taxpayers given the unique nature of the rail system. Does every jurisdiction with rail freight traffic need a fully staffed, taxpayer-funded task force to cover these things? You'd bankrupt a ton of smaller counties.
The whole world is not New York City or the Bay Area where you have several billions of taxpayer revenues sloshing around you can throw at crime problems.
The "tough on crime" crowd needs to be less ideological and think deeply about the fiscal implications of taxpayers of their policies.
The state does not have a monopoly on violence in the United States. Private citizens can and have used lethal force to stop and/or prevent certain crimes (and I’m not talking about kooky stand your ground laws either).
It all makes sense given that we are, after all, a former British colony. Great Britain’s whole thing with its colonial empire was to outsource its territorial defense to its colonial citizens.
