TrainsPro has a very vague article about a South Carolina man “Stealing railroad tracks “, does anyone know any more details about this story?
Was it loose rail and/or OTM?
The vague headline makes it sound like he was pulling up rail, or maybe stealing panel track, but doesn’t give any details about just what he was stealing
Short pieces of loose rail are still plenty heavy, 39’ pieces of stick rail aren’t just heavy, but not something that you just toss in the back of a pickup truck and drive off
I’m curious what he stole, and what his plans were for the stolen product
The article put a $22,000 dollar value on the items, I honestly have no idea what rail or OTM would cost, but selling it to a scrapyard certainly wouldn’t net anywhere near the replacement cost, seems like it would be a whole lot of work for a questionable return
If anyone knows any more than what the vague TrainsPro article said, inquiring minds want to know, at least mine does anyway
Have no idea about the article you are referring to.
With that being said, over the years a number of track thieves have been apprehended. Generally they are a group of individuals that make themselves look like a railroad contractor and they do their thefts on exceedingly low use line segments. Locals know the railroad is exceedingly low volume operation and are not surprised to see a ‘contractor’ pulling up the track material - they have no idea of what legal step have to be taken for a line segment to be abandoned and tracks removed.
That be the one, I’m curious as to what he stole, and what he intended to do with the stolen materials.
The story reads as if the suspect was acting alone, so not likely impersonating a contractor. There is little in rail infrastructure that is manageable by a single person. Other than as scrap metal, is there any market for such materials?
I looked for scrap steel prices in SC, it ranges $120-160/ton, sounds like an awful lot of work for the money
It wasn’t clear if he was caught in the act, on video and Identified, possibly by vehicle license plates, or turned in by a scrap dealer. I know that there are various forms of scrap that you must provide proof of ownership or source for, such as complete vehicles, and catalytic converters, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a proof of ownership or source requirement for rail materials
Doug, I found several articles and announcements, but all are short and basically say the same thing. No details that I can find so far on what he stole or what he planned to do with the stuff.
I did an online search before I posted the thread, and likely found the same stories you did, the msn one cited as was verbatim the Trains Pro article
I was rather disappointed in the Trains Pro article for being so vague, as their typical readers would better understand the terms and situation than the general public would, and their staff should have known to ask better questions.
In my opinion, the level of “Journalism “ displayed in the Trains Pro article was rather disappointing
But hey, it generated some activity on the forum by being vague
Charlie, thank you, what Rich and I are trying to determine is just what is meant by “Stealing Railroad Tracks “ it’s not as if someone tosses a”Railroad Track “ in the back of their pickup and drives off
Was it loose rail sections, which would have to be pretty short for a single person to handle, was it OTM, panel track?
Hard to imagine someone stealing panel track, but the articles are very vague on just what materials were stolen
It gives a value of the stolen materials of $22,000 but I have no idea what rail materials cost, so that isn’t much of a clue
Previously in SC, a guy cut up rail for scrap. The location for this case was in a town so I would have thought he would have been noticed. Maybe Aberdeen and Rockfish is inactive?
Put on a Safety Vest and a hard hat and have some kind of writing (magnetic sign) on the doors of your pick up truck and you too can look like an authorized contractor - the ruse will withstand the ‘scrutiny’ of Joe Blow and may even withstand inqujiry of Roscoe P. Coletrain type local police.
They are certainly not as a company; in fact there was a reasonably recent story about them handling double-stack blocks to one of their online customers.
I realize that there is pretty much someone who will try to steal just about any given item of value.
It just seems to me that on the three armed scale of Risk/Effort/Reward, the balance of Effort vs Reward is pretty low on the reward side for the effort expended cutting up and stealing rail
But hey I’m a pretty honest guy, and not a thief at heart, so maybe someone else sees a better Effort/Reward balance there than I do
I got the general impression these were some kind of rusty yard leads, with the ‘plausible denial’ defense attempt being something like ‘I thought they were abandoned tracks’.
Someone with an interest could pull up Bennettsville on Google Earth and see what’s there…
Just remembered an episode of The Wire where local drug addict and comedy relief character Bubbles tried to steal a knocked over street light in the hopes of selling it for scrap to buy more drugs. To make it even funnier he was gonna drag it all over town with his Araber cart to the scrap dealers since he didn’t have a truck or anything else to haul it. While in that case it was supposed to be humorous I can’t help but wonder if something like that is what happened here.
Never underestimate an addict’s hustle when they need their fix. It’s just it would be nice if they could apply it to less self destructive pursuits.