"Taunton —
A CSX railroad engine en route to a delivery in Taunton’s Myles Standish Industrial Park derailed Wednesday afternoon after thieves cut away two 8-foot sections of solid steel track, authorities said.
...
Evidence suggests the thieves — railroad personnel said it would have taken two or more people to lift each 900-pound segment — were cutting away another portion when they decided to flee.
A section of rail directly behind the front engine had been cut through. And although the thieves managed to get away with one piece of steel, they left a second piece on the ground some 200 feet from where it had been filched.
De Angelis also noted that a piece of rail, more than 100 feet away, had buckled and torn away from its moorings because of the intense pressure released when the thieves cut through the steel.
“When they cut through they must have got the shock of their lives,” he said.
Joe Enos, owner of Enos Metals on Dana Street in Taunton, said his scarp yard doesn’t pay for steel, but yards that do are paying only 12 to 15 cents per pound."

http://www.tauntongazette.com/archive/x ... n-derailed

$139.00 @ .15 a pound. They must want drugs really bad.

Not only is rail really heavy, it's really hard to cut. It's not mild steel. When they replaced the rails behind the tool and die shop where I used to work I managed to grab a couple of short pieces.

We cut half inch thick pieces for paperweights. We used an industrial band saw and it took a while. Wonder what equipment the thieves were using.

I also have a one foot section that makes a good anvil.

Ultravox wrote:Not only is rail really heavy, it's really hard to cut. It's not mild steel. When they replaced the rails behind the tool and die shop where I used to work I managed to grab a couple of short pieces.

We cut half inch thick pieces for paperweights. We used an industrial band saw and it took a while. Wonder what equipment the thieves were using.

I also have a one foot section that makes a good anvil.

Gas powered chop saw, they were probably some jerks that just wanted to see a train derail. You'd be surprised how many people are like that.

Yeah, same kind of asshats that like to shoot .22's at airplanes when they fly over just after takeoff...

IMO, it's actually 3rd world behavior. Tons of theft for scrap up here, well beyond copper. Catalytic converters are the theft du jour's lately. Money is money.

The police need to seriously get after the recyclers that buy stuff from those guys.
We had a fairly well known statue cut up and stolen in Portland recently. You can't tell me any legitimate recycler wouldn't get suspicious when someone brought in a cut up bronze in the bed of their pickup. They should be charged with receiving stolen goods and jailed.

BTW, I also have a piece of railroad track for an anvil. Works great.

At the scrap yards/metal recyclers here in Richmond they make a photocopy of your DL before you can sell them anything.

Some nice young man stole the plumbing out from under one of my houses a few weeks ago. My only consolation is that it's about time for someone like him to be scraped off an electrical substation pretty soon. Seems to happen regularly around here.

I've heard of people stealing manhole covers for scrap (I think they are cast iron), which is bad enough.

But if it is cost effective to steal rails -- and from your calculations above it looks like it really isn't -- then we have bigger problems.

larrymod wrote:I've heard of people stealing manhole covers for scrap (I think they are cast iron), which is bad enough.

But if it is cost effective to steal rails -- and from your calculations above it looks like it really isn't -- then we have bigger problems.

Yeah, we've got some big problems. Federal unemployment extension runs out the end of this year, making it a campaign issue. Tax cuts for the wealthy run out end of next year, making the raising of them early a campaign issue. And the bell that will really begin this battle royal is the debt ceiling decision. All the while people's bellies get empty each day and tempers more full to overflowing.

Oh yes, we have some big problems.