It’s been a while since I’ve heard of problems with looting of railcars. Has the problem been resolved or is it simply of no interest to the media?
If it’s been resolved, how did they stop it?
Hardly resolved. Just relocated.
It seems like the insurance companies that are covering the losses would force them to do something about it.
If nothing else, have independent drone owners cover the areas and pay them a bounty when they see someone tampering with a railcar… when the police arrest them. Pay a bit less when the police simply stop them from opening the car.
Part of the issue, according to the police, was that the looters would be arrested, but the District Attorney or the judges would release them. Some were arrested in the morning, and were back looting in the evening. The police were very frustrated.
I don’t know how much crime video you watch but that’s the norm nowadays. In california, you have to exceed $900 shoplifting to get arrested. Virtually every case (for anything, except for murder and such) is plead down to nothing and the criminals are released with little or no punishment. They are so bold that they will sometimes even tell the arresting offer that they will beat the charges, and they do.
Except when real jail time is the result of the prosecution.
Unless one is a part of the criminal justice system, no one knows the truth and even then the ‘truth’ from any particular participant in the system will be colored by their own preceptions. We are in a world today where protestations about the criminal justice system are being made more for political reasons than they are for criminal justice reasons.
YT has a lot of videos that show the results of prosecutions using public records that are available through FOI. You can get dash and body cam video as well as court records. Too many are plead down to nothing.
Run for DA and stop the pleadings.
There’s no place to put them, and they don’t have money for fines (or else they’ll just steal something else to cover the cost).
It doesn’t help that some states are closing prisons (excuse me - correctional facilities) left and right…
Besides, it’s gotten so that such facilities are simply colleges for criminals. If they didn’t know how before they went in, they’ll certainly know how when they get out…
I could go on for many posts with the criminal justice system but it’s getting political and I may have offended some so I’ll quit here.
Thanks for the replies on the original topic, however.
While California gets the most attention, it’s happening elsewhere, too. There’s a spot in Omaha where trains coming up from Kansas City get stopped and some containers have been broken into. Westbound stack trains also occasionally have some open container doors. It’s not to the level of California, but it happens.
I bet whomever opened up the container I once saw on a westbound was surprised. It was bulk grain.
Jeff
While a fair number of those break-ins are likely “games of chance,” I tend to believe that sometimes they are fairly organized (ie, have ‘inside’ information), and the thieves know exactly which container(s) they are going to hit.
There is a lot of truth in your statement tree! However, most lading hauled in railroad intermodal does not specify the exact commodity being shipped in the trailers/containers. Most list the commodity as ‘FAK’ Freight All Kinds, and the freight charges are not assessed on a commodity/weight basis, but in per box charges.
Conrail Boyz.
And for those who’ve never heard of them:
https://www.dailypress.com/2003/07/20/robbing-trains-goes-high-tech/
And there was the COPS episode from 1991 (complete with the old box caprices), where the Jersey City PD + Conrail PD set up the sting with the CR Trailvan trailer.
Easily found on youtube if you’re so inclined.
The link was behind a paywall. Here’s another story:
https://www.nj.com/hudson/2016/10/conrail_boyz_theft_ring_leader_sentenced_to_8_year.html
And another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBMeNzhPbkY
And one more:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/conrail-boyz-gang-accused-of-robbing-new-jersey-freight-trains/
There have been more than a few stories about stopping trains mid-desert and other secluded locations by shooting out or otherwise damaging brake lines. By the time a crew member gets to the intended target container, it’s empty and the perps are long gone…
Absolutely, organized crime is heavily involved in cargo theft. I had a 45k load of steel stolen last year…truck and load driven out of the Exxon Fuel Maxx in Houston in broad daylight…empty truck found abandoned but undamaged in Humble, TX a day later. No way some kids with time on their hands did that.
Somebody, somewhere, knows what’s in a given container. Somebody, somewhere, knows where that container is. Get those people in your camp and watch the wonders unfold.
I don’t doubt that there is organized crime involved with much of the looting. However, I also think there is a lot of disorganized crime doing it too. The scenes of boxes and items discarded along tracks would seem to indicate a kind of exploratory opening of containers.
It depends on the container. There are a lot of containers loaded with only one commodity and the train list will reflect that. For example, there is a lot of shelving moving around. And one of them was broken into because some of the remenants were along the right of way. (I guess the container was opened, the person(s) saw it wasn’t anything they wanted and moved on to the next target. Leaving the container open.)
I also wonder if some shipping company containers are targeted more than others. Being those in the know or with experience know which ones are more likely to have a load with street value.
Our train lists show MIXFRT for the FAK or mixed loads containers that Balt mentioned. I had a conductor one time say we moved a lot of fruit cocktail in those containers. I asked him what he meant, and he showed me the list showing MIXFRT, or as he interpreted it, mixed fruit.
I’ve also started noticing some containers, 20ft and 40ft or bigger, that have doors along the sides as well as at the end. I wonder if they are actually compartmentalized or just offer better access. The doors are all double doors, just like the end doors.
Jeff