getting past the the goofed-up headline…:
The railroad will have to post a new warning sign along their tracks, “Warning criminal masterminds at work. Use track at your own risk”
If the video footage was taken at the actual site, instead of stock footage, the track was signaled. The circuit should have dropped on the dispatcher’s display and the signals on both sides of the missing rail would go to stop or restricting. Now if they had placed jumpers to keep the signals operational, it would elevate their crime to a new level. I doubt they would as the wire was worth something [2c] at the scrapyard, too.
ok that made me tickle. Four peple trying to take a peice of rail to sell for money did they stop to think and maybe take the old spikes laying around the tracks. That the railroad would not care about.
The way I understand the article (and from reading about the incident elsewhere) what the thieves got their chain on was a piece of scrap rail lying beside the track.
The most amazing aspect of the story for me is the ages of the thieves. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of teenagers trying this but, three of the four people were in their fifties. I guess if you’re a tweaker or a lush you have to feed your habit no matter what.
It wasn’t a piece of rail that was currently in use. It was from a pile of rail CSX had by the crossing.
Only in Kentucky ( and I can say that because I live here)
it doesn’t matter the age, If they think they can gee money for nothing they will do what ever. People are even stealing the live line drops to peoples houses. trhy try to steal from substations. they are stealing manhole covers.
The linked article and video certainly didn’t make that fact clear. But that certainly would be easier to drag away. For a minute I thought this might turn into another trash CSX track maintainence thread.[:-^]
Apparently a nearby shortline with a long stretch of unused track had people trying to take the rails from it. Don’t know how succesful they were.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that the place they sell to are largely to blame. After all, a piece of rail is obvious as to what it is and if they are accepting this then they are encouraging people to try it, much as people go into unsafe buildind projects to steal copper tubing etc. If there were a little more investigation as to where the products these people sell for money came from, it might help cut down on this. Any thoughts?
You may be thinking of the rail theft from the East Broad Top in Central Pennsylvania. It was from the inactive section of the railroad (since 1960, it’s only been a tourist line using 5 of the original 33 miles of mainline) between Cooks and Robertsdale. Note: you will need a well detailed map of the area to find either of those towns. They removed about a quarter mile of track, and even had a phony letter “signed” by the General Manager stating they were there legitimately. The cut up rail was found at a scrapyard in Williamsport, ironically, a competitor of the Kovalchicks.
You’re right that scrap rail, that’s obvious what it is, should be better checked by the yard, but in this case they may have used the same phony letter. Scrap copper tube or wiring is much more common and difficult to trace.
You are absolutely correct! If the scrap yards would stop buying this (obviously) stolen material, there would be no incentive for anyone to steal it.
I manage a scrap recycling facility in Milwaukee, and it is our policy that we require a valid ID from anyone that sells us scrap; we also have a video record of every vehicle’s license plate number. Needless to say, since we started this policy a few years ago, we no longer get the riffraff bringing us there ill-gotten goods. Unfortunately, a short distance away is another scrap dealer that is not as concerned with such trivialities as legal ownwership.
Zardoc, good for you and your facility! Although I’m generally anti-regulation, this is a case in which your practices should be required of all such facilities. It seems that each month we read of more instances of the theft of railroad property.
There was a case in western Iowa last year – a farmer returned home, entered his house, and it blew up. He was killed. It turned out that thieves had stolen a working copper propane line.
They have also started IDing people who bring in large amounts of scrap copper and iron in the Dallas area because of all the copper thefts last yr. there…[bow]
Tom, you are right about the EBT as I remember my friend mentioning it. I was actually referring to the Middletown and New Jersey.
I am saying something that I know I shouldn’t say, but looking at the lineup photos, I don’t think the gene pool runs real deep there. [#oops] [:-^]
For a couple of minutes I thought EBT again.
Rgds IGN