Cable / copper / metal theft - ongoing problems on the railways and elsewhere

[whole diary]

[devon_metro]

Quoting a text - "nearly all the cables have gone"

[Bob_Blakey]

Time to bite the bullet and use commercial telecomms for these service critical purposes, rather than relying on lineside cabling.

Unfortunately the 'commercial telecomms' companies are fairly regularly hit by the same problem; my employer has started treating cabling with Smart Water, but of course this is only of any use if the cables are recovered after the event or if the scrotes responsible are apprehended and are found to have traces of the marker on them.

I suspect the only real solution may be the use of as much optical fibre cable as possible (zero scrap value) but this would only be effective if the aforementioned scrotes can be convinced by the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) / BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) publicity machine that they are wasting their time.

What chance the reinstatement of regular lineside patrols? None? (thought so-way too expensive)

[bigdaz]

Interesting.... have just watched BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)'s South Today report to today's events.

A high percentage of the footage seemed to focus on Reading platforms 4a/b which, as far as I understood, would not be affected by the lack of cabling at Tilehurst.

[Timmer]

I suspect the only real solution may be the use of as much optical fibre cable as possible (zero scrap value) but this would only be effective if the aforementioned scrotes can be convinced by the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) / BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) publicity machine that they are wasting their time.

What chance the reinstatement of regular lineside patrols? None? (thought so-way too expensive)

I would suspect that these type of scrotes know exactly what they are doing and as for reinstatement of regular lineside patrols if the frequency of these thefts increases they may not have much choice as this week alone has cost Network Rail a fortune in payouts to rail companies on the Western region.

I have no idea how much resource BTP put towards catching cable theft scrotes but its becoming a ever increasing crime on our railway network.

[JayMac]

One would hope that the compensation payouts NR^» (Network Rail - home page) have to make to TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) will filter down to affected passengers. FGW^▸ (First Great Western) do not, at the moment, have to make compensation payments for delays when the rail industry is not at fault.

You could argue though that NR is at fault - for not doing more to prevent cable thefts. That being said it's nigh on impossible to protect every yard of cable across the network.

[johoare]

Well, having gone for the 08.00 Maidenhead to Paddington this morning, but already knowing it was cancelled (I know to check before I leave home these days) I got the 08.04.. Still a fast train.. and very overcrowded due to the disruption/cancellations,  but I've been on worse..I think it being a Friday in August helped a bit as people were away..

Our only problem was, when arriving at Paddington... the doors at our end of the carriage wouldn't open... It was a turbo.. It took quite a while for everyone to get off our carriage.. yet not one person walking past outside wondered why we were still all crowded into the door area and tried (it might not have worked) to open our door for us 

[willc]

Time to bite the bullet and use commercial telecomms for these service critical purposes, rather than relying on lineside cabling.

Not any more secure than the rail network I'm afraid.

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/sport/omboysleague/archive/2009_2010/2010/07/30/Oxford+news+%28om_oxfordnews%29/8302263.Hundreds_cut_off_after_cable_theft/

I have no idea how much resource BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) put towards catching cable theft scrotes but its becoming a ever increasing crime on our railway network.

 BTP press release on this issue from just last week
http://www.btp.presscentre.com/Media-Releases/REWARDS-ON-OFFER-FOR-CABLE-THEFT-INFO-103b.aspx

[Electric train]

I have no idea how much resource BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) put towards catching cable theft scrotes but its becoming a ever increasing crime on our railway network.

I have quite a lot of dealings with BTP Crime Prevention Officers, we arrange a site meeting with the BTP CPO and the contractors we use advice is given on security measures local BTP patrol contact details in some locations the civil police are briefed.  There are a number of surveillance and monitoring systems deployed site security employed etc but this still does not prevent raids on sites where we are working.  Site security staff are often intimidated or paid off (who can blame them on ^5 or ^6 an hour) in one incident the security guard was blocked into his cabin by the thieves placing a load of concrete troughs against the door.  However all these measure only work for small work sites and they are expensive which at the end of the day reduces the amount of money we have for renewing equipment, these measures are almost impossible to deploy on an operational railway or on very large work sites.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the Bristol Evening Post:

Copper thieves cause train delays

Rail passengers travelling between city stations and London faced lengthy delays when trains had to be re-routed after thieves took copper cable used to power signals.

The theft happened just after midnight yesterday from a section of railway near Reading.

Network Rail engineers spent the day working to replace the cable with a thicker length that is harder to cut and easier to trace if stolen.

Passengers were delayed by up to 20 minutes on First Great Western services between Temple Meads and Paddington throughout the day.

First spokeswoman Ellie Banks said trains were diverted on to relief lines.

Network Rail spokeswoman Mavis Choong said the cable theft had caused signals to go down. But she emphasised that no passengers were put in danger. Ms Choong said: "We have a fail-safe system but it's never an excuse to do something like this. Many thousands of passengers have been unnecessarily delayed thanks to an act of mindless vandalism. The people who did this have also put themselves in a lot of danger."

Network Rail and Crimestoppers are offering a reward of up to ^1,000 for information leading to the conviction of the thieves.

My highlighting. CfN.

[ChrisB]

I think you've got offer more than the copper was worth as reward....

[Worcester_Passenger]

Agree - ^1000 is a laughable reward for this particular incident.

[Trowres]

Why is it so difficult to catch the thieves? Detection and location of cable breaks ought to be near-instantaneous and automatic.

[Electric train]

Why is it so difficult to catch the thieves? Detection and location of cable breaks ought to be near-instantaneous and automatic.

The panel box will lose track circuits, point detection, etc in that area even a wider area, the fault could be a power failure to the cables being stolen, what the box will not get is the problem is at mile post, even if the box does have a good indication of where the problem is by the time even the civil police have arrived the villeins have gone, blues n too's you can spot a long way off, also these villains will go through the cables very quickly with axes power tools tie the bundle to a vehicle and tow them out of the troughs in 5 minuets about no more than ^100 worth of scrap is nicked but ^10,000 or of damage is done.

The Courts are often to soft by not allowing the endangering the railway charge when the villains are caught

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Rail metal theft crackdown after delays

Rail authorities say they will be stepping up their efforts to stop thefts after thousands of passengers were delayed on Friday.

A reduced service had to run for most of the day after copper wire was stolen from a signal point on the network near Tilehurst in Berkshire.

The delays affected services between Reading, Oxford, Swindon and London.

Network Rail condemned the "mindless" act and has vowed to fight the problem with British Transport Police.

A spokesman for BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) said: "It is a significant problems on the railways. We are doing as much as we can to address it."

[Timmer]

From The Guardian website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/28/railway-crackdown-copper-theft

First it was leaves on the line, then it was the wrong kind of snow. But now there is a new excuse for delays on the 17.38 to Orpington: the price of copper.

Soaring demand from China and India has pushed copper theft from railway infrastructure to record levels in Britain. The crimewave has hit 11,000 trains in a year and delayed a million passengers.

Network Rail, which first highlighted the problem in the north-east of England when the copper boom took off four years ago, has set up a taskforce to deal with incidents that have seen ^35m worth of copper stripped from railsides since 2006. If the epidemic is unchecked the annual takings of copper thieves will be ^20m a year by 2014, Network Rail estimates.

The taskforce, which also includes train operators and the British Transport police, is calling for tougher sentencing, a crackdown on rogue scrap merchants and legislation to give the police greater power over errant metal dealers who sell the stolen copper on.

"Metal thieves targeting the railway are causing misery to thousands of passengers and freight users and costing the industry, and the wider economy, tens of millions a year and rising," said Dyan Crowther, Network Rail's director of operational services.

Gangs are disabling swaths of the rail network by ripping out lines attached to track signals, which use copper to convey control centre messages and power. Once power is lost to rail signals, the lights revert to auxiliary power and immediately switch to red until repair teams arrive, causing instant disruption.