First off, if you watch Breaking Bad and didn’t see last Sunday’s episode, don;t read this post. It will spoil the ending.
Here’s a little recap of the episode. Chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine cook Walter White has a problem getting melamine, a key ingredient in the cook process. This leads Walt to steal them chemical from a train. In order to keep anybody form realizing the train has been robbed, they pull the heist in dark territory. They pump water into the tank car the drain the chemical out of so it weighs the same. Walt thinks the customer buying the methlamine will blame China for it being watered down. Here’s a clip of how the robbery went down: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfeB2GwOaXM
Do you guys think this would ever work real life?
Yes, it would work.
Stupid thing to do, but doable…the only catch would be getting the security seal numbers, you would have to have someone on the inside.
If the car showed up at the receiver’s plant with the wrong numbers, it would be rejected without being opened, and the railroad would investigate, but that would take a lot of time.
By the way, several felonies committed there, besides the theft, interfering with interstate commerce.
Missing or broken seals—absolutely. The, uh…“perps” didn’t apply replacement seals.
Without knowing melamine’s haz-mat properties, sure it would work as long as the tank stopped within the range of the thieve’s hoses.
A “train” movie law was complied with: when a train has to stop rapidly, ther must be a shot of a locked-up wheel (sparks flying from it or optionally going inreverse with sparking.
Darwin rules: why didn’t, when the train was likely to start during the caper didn’t someone pull the pin on the car ahead of the crime?
And with those light rails, survival of prone person between them would require extreme anorexia. Horrible scene which will inspire some kid to try letting a train run over him/her…Double-dog-dare…
Shooting the young railfan, I guess there was no piano player.