MEC Mountain Division Rail Theft Arrests Made

For those of you who were not aware, a week ago two CVRTC club members discovered that someone was stealing rail with cutting torches on the Mountain Division in West Baldwin at the former helper station siding. The incident was reported to Kim King at MEDOT, and I'm happy to say that last night I was informed that two felony arrests have been made in relation to this event.

Thanks to CVRTC members Bill and Harvey for rolling upon this, and getting on it before more was stolen. Odd part about the theft is they stole about 3 rail lengths...however there are 3 rail lengths that are scrap that have been lying on the ground for years...why not take whats easiest, and not what is harder and more obvious that its stolen!

Glad to hear that punks like this were caught. This sort of vandalism and stealing is simply unexcusable.

Xian

Wow, it's amazing what some people will try and get away with. I read an article somewhere else recently about people stealing rails off abadoned lines, or copper parts off of buildings. Times are tough, but i could never imagine getting to the point where stealing rails with a blowtorch would seem like a good idea. Is this line offically abandoned or just out of service? Not that it matter anyways in this case. The tracks are still state property.

It's good they cought these people and hopefully others who might consider this will think twice.

That must have been some operation! Rail is not light stuff, they must have had machinery or many many helpers to move it! Talk about a low margin operation... Glad some arrests were made!

To any and all - Don't take this post the wrong way. I'm speaking from practical experience in the RR industry.

To steal rail like they did, really isn't a hard operation at all. If you look closely at the photos you'll see they cut off the spike heads with a torch, and then just torched off the angle bars for the sections that they took (with the exception of 1 photo). Two guys working with torches could easily cut and haul 4 or 8 foot sections of rail without issue. If they had a trailer, they could easily take larger ones that didn't fit in the back of a pick up truck.

Once you get working in a rhythm and know how to use a torch correctly, it won't take that long to cut up the rail and get the heck outta there.

What does scrap rail sell for nowadays, $250/nt? At that price, an 85lb rail is worth about $140. Not worth a felony conviction!

Cowford wrote:What does scrap rail sell for nowadays, $250/nt? At that price, an 85lb rail is worth about $140. Not worth a felony conviction!

Barely pays for the gas, once all's said and done. Who said criminals were smart? It's not like those rails are made of gold...

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I figured this was a good place to mention that there are apparently still some thefts going on along the Mountain Div., although not necessarily with torches, etc.

As somebody mentioned above, even if the materials are "scrap," they're not the thieves' scrap.

The last time I checked, "Sorted Railroad Scrap" (tie plates and other smaller items) was just over 20¢ per pound for less than a truckload. (Truckload being 40,000 lbs. or more, if I remember correctly.) The most lucrative stuff is #1 rail, meaning rail cut into one-foot lengths. I still think engaging in a real job instead of larceny might be less work, but maybe that's just me.

I'm glad those bozos got caught, and I hope some of the other people who are going around swiping anything that's not spiked down (and some things that are spiked down) get locked up, too.
That might help discourage them or someone else from cutting up active rail lines.

Wow. I'm glad they caught those guys too.
Speaking historically of major rail thefts, does anyone remember the ENTIRE Wrentham Branch from E. Walpole south to almost Attleboro being stolen?
Those guys had a flatbed with a small crane attached. They were eventually caught, but the rail was never replaced.

Cosmo wrote:Those guys had a flatbed with a small crane attached. They were eventually caught, but the rail was never replaced.

Whoa! Some nerve, huh? It makes me wonder if they did that in daylight. Doing it at night might annoy the neighbors badly enough that someone would call the police, but if they looked like they were supposed to be doing that, that might be how they stole so much of it.

A couple of years ago, two guys swiped two 33-foot lengths of rail from near a crossing on the Rockland Branch. A deputy sheriff drove by, saw them doing it, and decided they must work for the MERR or MDOT. Um, no. Wrong kind of truck, no safety gear, etc.
Fortunately, a neighbor knew who they were and where they had taken it. By the time anyone went there, it had already been sliced into the more manageable/most marketable length. They got $300 for it, and they paid back $300.

Most scrap dealers up here are wary of anything brought in that might be RR materials, but I think some of them wouldn't know a tie plate from a dinner plate. Maybe they figure once the seller has signed the paper saying that it was theirs to sell, the dealer is covered. There seem to be some who do the Sgt. Hans Georg Schultz routine. ("I know nussing. NUSSING!")

Watchman318 wrote:Whoa! Some nerve, huh? It makes me wonder if they did that in daylight. Doing it at night might annoy the neighbors badly enough that someone would call the police, but if they looked like they were supposed to be doing that, that might be how they stole so much of it.

That was pretty much how they did it. I don't remember if the truck had any kind of lettering or ID marks painted on it (other than the ubiquitous License Plate) nor can I remember if it was during the Conrail or PC era. It may have been during or immediately after the PC/CR transference which may have had some folks confused and may have hindered reporting or verifying such an event. Maybe they counted on that? Who knows?

Most legit scrappys will immediately call the cops if someone other than a railroad employee shows up at their place with a bunch of rail, plates, spikes, etc.

That's the tough part: the legit ones won't take it, but somebody must be accepting the stuff, unless the thieves are smelting it themselves.

There have been some reports of people going along various lines with a pickup truck, tires straddling one rail, while one of the guys walks along behind, tossing stuff into the back of the truck. Someday, somebody might get an unpleasant view of a headlight and ditch lights while they're doing that.

If that is what they are doing....may the ditch lights not flash.....jerks. I have 2 kids, an additional coming in October and when money strated to get tight I went out and got.....A SECOND JOB! What a concept! Work honestly for a living! Maybe their sentance should be to stand next to a Geep in a closed door round house and have the engineer blow the horn for 10 straight minutes.........

RE: Wrentham Branch rail theft.
(apologies for thread hijack; mods feel free to split topic)

I grew up in Wrentham during that era, and this is the first I heard that the line was scrapped illegally. As I recall, the rails went out of service with the start of Conrail in 1976. I would have been about 6 years old, so I have no recollection of that, or seeing any active trains on the line. I do remember seeing a lone boxcar parked in Wrentham Center at the freight platform, probably circa 1975.

The rails set unused for most of my childhood, making a great place to explore. Over time, I walked all of the ROW (with rails present)from Pondville Station (in Norfolk) to where the Wrentham Outlet mall is now. I must have been around 10, circa 1980.

Then, one day (circa 1980-81) I started seeing torch cuts in the rails and large holes drilled near each cut. A friend supposed that they were scrapping by cutting the rails into manageable chunks, then hauling it out using chains. I never saw them do it - I doubt that I could have watched without breaking out into tears. (Hey, I was an emotional kid.) By the end of that summer, all that was left were ties in the cinder ballast.

The track terminated (at that time) north of the Plainville station site (and roundhouse, which still stands.) That would be several miles short of Attleboro. The line south of Plainville was gone by 1969 and never made it into the Penn Central era.

No one I ever spoke with (including a well-known rail historian in Wrentham and ex-New Haven stationmaster) ever suspected anything about the scrapping as being anything less than legit. It just seemed like that "Penn Central Properties" were doing their thing, and that was going to be the end of the Wrentham Branch.

Incidentally, a small isolated section of the Wrentham Branch is still on the ground in an industrial park near (but not connected to) the site of Cedar Junction. Until fairly recently, the diamond that served at Cedar Jct. could be found in the woods, if you knew where to look. Unfortunately, new construction now occupies that site, and I assume that the diamond was either removed or buried.

-Ed Lecuyer
(Wrentham Resident, 1971-1992)