set up garden lights with motion senors. If you put them near back gates and along the driveways you can see your way into the drive and it has some security.
Storing the trains INDOORS is probably the best thing to do. If you don’t have too many structures, how much trouble is it to bring in the most valuable ones? Just don’t mount them permanently. It’s unlikely that thieves will steal track. It’s more likely that youngsters will vandalize the right-of-way, and there’s probably not much you can do about it. Your defense is to have surveillance equipment that records the theft or vandalism that can be used to find and prosecute the guilty. It will probably turn out to be one of your neighbor’s kids. You can muscle the parents for restitution if you have a tape.
Walt
A few years ago, on our 20th wedding anniversary, I bought my wife a new Viking Designer One Embroidery sewing machine. The thing costs 8 grand with the associated computer software and she is completely paranoid that whenever she has to take it out of the house to go to an embroidery class, that someone will steal it. Okay, maybe she has a right since the thing costs so much but I try to calm her down by telling her that there isn’t much of a black market for home embroidery sewing machines and she should try to relax a little.
I believe the going price for brass at the junk dealer is around $2.00/lb. I figure a thief would have to tear up about a hundred feet of track to come up with ten pounds of brass and then he’d have to strip the ties off of it before the dealer would take the scrap. That’s a lot of work for twenty bucks, so it’s doubtful a thief would want to make off with our track. That leaves vandalism, the number one pastime of the miscreant adolescent. If you can protect your property by lighting or, as I said in a previous post, gaining their respect, trust, and friendship, then you’ll probably have the problem licked.
Best of luck and keep us apprised of events
Mark
Another vote for Paws and Jaws Mobile Alarm System!!! My 2 labs are people dogs, but the sight of two 70 lb dogs coming at you like highball freights is enough to scare anybody. Even the regular maid service people say they wouldn’t get out of the car if I weren’t home, and they know the girls and that they just want to get some attention. Gets a bit expensive trying to fence in 5 acres, and that would ruin the view of the deer across my cornfield. The girls also work well for keeping the deer out of the yard. They are contained in invisible fence and have a set of dog doors on back porch and from porch to house so they can go in and out at leasure or anytime they hear something outside!