Rail freight service on Vancouver Island is at a standstill after thieves disabled a pair of locomotives.
Around 6 a.m. on Monday, a Nanaimo mechanic discovered copper cables missing on the two Southern Vancouver Island Railway locomotives. The cables act as the power supply for the only two freight-hauling locomotives on Vancouver Island.
SRY is sending 124 and 129 over as replacements apparently. The 110 and 119 have to go to New Westminster for repairs. Vancouver Island Railtours has offered their GP9RM locomotive to the SVI as well.
Meth heads will steal anything copper. As I mentioned in an earlier post, meth freaks were caught cutting and stealing copper electrical lines down a man-hole in Minneapolis this past winter. They were standing in ankle-deep water, cutting live wire. Electrocution would not be a tragedy in that case.
I think that the way to end this is to ban the private purchase of copper scrap.
Establish government facilities at existing recycling centers where copper scrap can be sold at a rate that favors the government and where identification in the form of drivers license and thumbprint will have to be provided.
Few if any criminals will want to present themselves with stolen copper at such a facility, and the copper collected from legitimate scrappers and scavengers can then be sold at a profit by the government to smelters.
So, this pays for itself, adds revenue to the government, and deters infrastructure vandalism.
The theft of copper cable has reached epidemic proportions in Las Vegas, even though some recycling facilities are trying to help stem the tide.
The latest smart trick is to open the access panels at the bottoms of two streetlights and identify which cable(s) run through from one to the other. Cut the cable(s) at one end, hook up a truck with a snatch block and pull the cable out the other end, then cut it off and take it to someplace where it can be stripped of insulation and chopped to shorter lengths. No skin off the thieves noses that there are now a couple of blocks without streetlights - they don’t live there.
They make a couple of hundred bucks, and the city has to spend 20 times that to undo the damage.
At the recycling center where I unload my plastic bottles and cardboard cartons, they have taken aggressive steps to stop the thieves from re-selling. Their foreman told me that he hasn’t see some of his former regulars since he helped bust one of them.
Has anyone figured out why I’m not a big fan of electrification in the boondocks? The copper crooks’ answer to the higher voltage in the catenary would be thicker insulation on the longer handles of their wire cutters. Lots easier than getting inside a diesel to steal the bus cables, and LOTS more copper.
Sadly, this sort of thing has become a sign of the times and is expected to only get worse. I agree that drug addicts, particularly meth addicts, are responsible for many of these types of crimes, but, the truth is that the state of our economy has forced many otherwise drug free, law abiding citizens to resort to similar crimes to make ends meet.
This has become a major problem here in SW Florida lately. Copper cable, brass valves, iron grates, manhole covers and steel rail has been turning up at local scrap yards by the ton; most of it stolen. Since the local housing market dried up last year there has been a 40,000+ reduction in the local work force. Lee County’s current unemployment rate is 8.5%, up from just under 4% this time last year. Since then a lot of metal has been stolen and sold for scrap. Never before have local authorities had to deal with such a widespread problem.
Lee County Sheriff, Mike Scott atributes the problem to the record high unemployment and foreclosure rates. According to Scott the crime rate has increased consistent with the increase in unemployment.
The place where we sell our scrap copper has started to take driver license info, as well as writing down the plate number of the vehicle that brought in the scrap. One time we went there was a signal maintainer’s truck from the UP there, and the signal maintainer was digging through their bins with one of the employees. I presume he was looking for stolen wiring among other things. I think it was Mudchicken that had mentioned that a lot of wire has been stolen along the ROW on the Tennessee Pass line.
I hate thieves to begin with, especially when I hear stories of the guts of AC units being stolen from churches and such. I also hear that catalytic converters have become a target. Where will it end?!?!?!?!?!?!
It will end when the scrap dealers stop buying obviously stolen material. When said dealers do buy the scrap, they are being just as dishonest as the persons that do the theft.
Here in Milwaukee scrap dealers are required to get personal identification for each scrap purchase. Notice I said required; that’s not to say they actually do it.
I could tell you lots of stories about the things that are brought in to our business (I manage a scrap recycler in Milwaukee). It being a matter of personal integrity and pride, we absolutely refuse to buy anything even slightly questionable, and unless proper identification (photo ID) is presented, we will not buy anything; we also record the license plate number of all vehicles that enter our property.
We get calls every day from citizens that have had various items stolen from their property. We keep a list for a month, and if anything shows up, we call the cops immediately, as well as the person that reported the theft. People have had their metal fences stolen from their grounds, aluminum siding ripped right from the side of the house, ladders taken from garages, etc. You name it, and if it’s metal, somebody has thought about stealing it.
The live-steam club in Phoenix, AZ has had problems with having their track stolen.
This is a new problem for us, but it’s been going on for years. Military installation teams in Korea used to carefully bury cable for various applications, only to come back the next day to find it gone, with ox tracks in it’s place. The locals would use a team of oxen to pull the cable (of course not yet terminated on either end) back out of the ground…
If they keep this up, you’ll need a license to buy and sell this stuff…
When I was working as a 9-1-1 operator, we had two electrocutions in the last town I worked in, both due to the attempted theft of copper wire. The street department was putting up new streetlights along the main street, and late one day, thieves tried to steal the wire…well, the lighting project had been completed, and the wires were energized. I don’t know what method they were using to steal the wires, but what ever it was, it was fatal.
The same street lighting project was delayed on two occasions due to the wires being stolen, either from within the lights themselves, the new control boxes, or in one case, a whole spool of wire.
In Wichita we have the Wichita Terminal Association office that sits next to the BNSF trks in the north part of town. When not out switching or when a crew is not on duty, the eng is left parked next to the office and for many yrs was in plain public view. This is directly across from a residental area which over the yrs has degraded to a lower class crime neighboorhood. In the nearly 40 yrs the WTA office has been at this location, not once has there been a known problem of some punk crossing the trks to board the eng, damage it or spray paint it. The mainline trks there were elevated two yrs ago, so now the parked eng cannot even be seen from the streets. Atleast there was a generation of people out there who respect private property and wish it could be that way everywhere in all walks of life.
Coke was legal, it was only banned when they found out how addictive is was.
WHAT good would come from making, Meth, Crack or Heroin legal?
I realize some European countries turn a blind eye, but these are socialist countrys where anyone with a pulse who doesn’t want to work still has an income.
Dale, if you are still looking into this thread as it drifts away from the subject, what is the nature of the commerce up my way in Courtenay. I am not aware of what brings the flange squeals this way.
Vandalism to aircraft and at airports is treated differently than regular run of the mill vandalism. It is a federal offense and it is posted on the fences at the airports. The same should go for railroads and interstate trucking. These vandals endanger all of us. Not sure if there are stiffer penalties for maritime vandalism/property crime. But when someone tampers with a locomotive or rolling stock, it is a serious matter and should be treated as such with stiffer penalties etc. TonyM.
They pick up 3 cars of telephone poles in Courtenay, roughly 25 times a year. The main customer is Superior Propane here in Nanaimo, perhaps 10 cars a week. Top Shelf down in Duncan also recieves a few cars of animal feed every week.