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Cargo theft looms as railroad problem
Include a retired passenger loco in the consist. Wire the containers/TOFC to the 480v. HEP. “Crispy Critters”, instead of stolen cargo.
Maybe the GPS trick would work for containers on double stacks too.
No surprise here. The railroads have eliminated the workforce to the point where nobody is on the property. It must be easy pickings to break into a container with nobody trackside and especially nobody on the rear of a train. From graffiti vandals to these skilled criminals American railroads are certainly viewed as one BIG patsy!
Look at all the graffiti on the trains and tell me there is security. Sad.
If you’re shipping $1,000,000 worth of items in a container it wouldn’t hurt to put a $1,000 of anti-theft protection on the container.
in the mid 70s I worked with a guy that had been laid off from his job as a Conrail fireman on a GG1.
He told me he was working a night shift pulling boxcars of Budwiser beer from the plant in Newark NJ.
The engineer stopped the train outside the plant but still on the siding and a truck pulled up next to a box car and started taking cases of beer. The engineer told him to just look out the windshield and mind his business.
Theft from railroads has been going on for a long time…
Considering that just about every freight car in the U.S. is heavily graffitied, it’s obvious that security in rail yards is virtually nonexistent. I’m surprised any freight actually makes it to its destination.
One thing that might help railroads is to enlist railfans to help.
When I was a kid in Little Village in Chicago(70’s 80’s) it was widely known to go to BN Cicero yard and have a field day, alot of that stuff ended up in mom & pop stores up & down 26th St. Over 30 yrs later, the railroads STILL dont improve yard security, its their own faults.
I don’t understand why more RR yards are not fenced in. I remember being a stupid teenager and wandering around the DW&P yard in the south end of Duluth Mn. Train crewmen were yelling at me and my cousin: it’s dangerous, your trespassing, get out of here. One guy was very justifiably angry. I wish I could find him and apologize to him. So I see it could be easy in some places to steal freight.
When locomotives (not to mention the railcars) are heavily graffitied, you know nobody’s doing a thing about security.
My dad worked for B&O, later Chessie, and last CSX as a railroad police officer. He had the rank of Lieutenant at the “height” of his career. Then he uncovered and reported railroad theft, which was done by higher-ups in the railroad itself! Captains would condemn boxcars full of property, and turn it over to salvagers, who would sell the contents, then split the profits with the officers involved. The company who was transporting the property would be reimbursed by insurance. When my Dad blew the whistle, his case went all the way to Baltimore, where the heads of the CSX basically buried him. Busted back to patrolman, no Union support. It was a shame, and sad to see that the railroads who promise safe transport of valued goods can actually be compromised by the police who make those promises. I’m not implying that all police are corrupt, but there’s a large system of “inventory shrinkage” that can be explained.
As for rail yards, my Dad’s stories of blatant theft from stationary & moving rolling stock in Bar Yard was pretty graphic. Those people were ballsy, and seemed it was worth the risk stealing stuff illegally and with great danger, rather than get a job and earn it honestly.
Tony
Las Vegas, NV
A good read but I had to have a good laugh over a topic as old as the industry itself: ‘Cargo theft looms as railroad problem’ - That’s an interesting choice of wording that implies cargo theft just started last week, when it’s been a problem in the industry since the beginning. It’s no coincidence and also quite interesting that the railroad industry is so tight lipped when it comes to the issue of cargo theft, until one weighs the issues from the their point of view. Cargo theft isn’t rocket science and stealing cargo from the railroad is elementary. Any slacker with a pair of bolt cutters and a little false bravado can muster up the courage to snip the seal on a container and crack open the door.
Railroads are extremely vulnerable to theft and do not want to advertise the fact that essentially any of the hundreds of trailers and containers on a single train can be carrying anything found down at the local Walmart or Costco and the chances of it carrying something valuable and appealing is great. Trailers, boxcars, containers are like shiny and colorful unwrapped Christmas presents to a bratty cargo thief and that’s where the appeal lies: The average thief doesn’t know what’s inside until they get inside. A lack of prudence ensures that the average cargo thief will prob not get much, thus minimizing losses as they will only hit a few trailers and take what they can, be it $2 bags of generic cat litter and low value dish detergent (Chicago May 2015) or $3,000 Plasma TV’s (Ludlow CA 2012) or like the latest incident in New Mexico, which rest assured wasn’t just a few isolated burglaries. These thieves knew enough to skip the canned goods and paper products and kept opening doors until they found the computers and TV’s. The railroad isn’t talking, they issue a generic statement and pray that the story dies and goes away quickly. All that stands between a thief and the freight is a red signal and luck.
It boils down to good old fashioned lu
A friend of mine who is a state’s attorney in New Mexico worked with local law enforcement and BNSF police on this issue for a long time-20 years ago. This is not a new problem. As noted, there’s a lot of unguarded track out there, and all you need is a couple of simple tools and a little time. You’d think with all the technology out there now, it would be a fairly simple thing to equip containers with devices to detect unauthorized opening. Granted, they’d have to be sturdy, as they would need to be able to work in all kinds of conditions over a 200 degree temperature range, but it could be done.
This is nothing new. There was a gang of Romanian refugees who boarded CN container trains and stole from them in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in the mid-1990’s. They were soon caught and imprisoned. Clearly domestic container operators in the US need to harden the doors and seals of their containers.
In the 1980-1981, when I worked in Texas, I remember the “boxcars” of cigarettes had a cable lock , about the thickness of my little finger, which was much stronger , than the typical railroad seal. The warehouse was nondescript, with just a name on it, but I suspect the crooks might have know about it.
My Dad’s cousin back in the early eighties swiped most of a boxcar full of Budweiser Beer after selling all he could, he started calling family members to come get some for “free”. he called my dad who doesn’t drink and wanted him to get a truckload to “keep” for him, my dad’s next call was to our other cousin the Sheriff. When the Sheriff arrived they were cases of beer stacked everywhere, even in his shower, the thief thought the Sheriff was there to get his free beer and was highly upset when instead of giving away beer he got arrested, after a five year vacation to the pen, he got out and promptly got arrested again by his cousin the sheriff for theft. True Story, this has been going on since the wild west days.
Deport all the convicted legal or illegal immigrants back to where they came from, that should reduce the percentages somewhat !
Mr. Klippel. that would work in some areas but in major midwest cities trains operate through poorer sections of town, ie: Chicago where I once worked you would have to deport a lot of blacks, Afro-Americans, etc.
Theft rates and losses will never be totally known as minor thefts never have a claim filed as the railroad and shippers have factored in a deductible figure in the shipping rates.
I once arrested a black male adult who had broken into ten containers but he had no loot in his duffel bag as he hadn’t found anything he wanted. I thought the vodka gift sets were kind of nice.
In Chicago that is felony theft and he went back to prison as he was a repeat offender.