Railroad Forums 

  • Los Angeles rail thefts

  • Discussion about the Union Pacific operations past and present. Official site can be found here: UPRR.COM.
Discussion about the Union Pacific operations past and present. Official site can be found here: UPRR.COM.

Moderator: GOLDEN-ARM

 #1590606  by Red Wing
 
What's the cost to benefit ratio. It appears to me that UP doesn't care yet because it's cheaper to pay the insurance than be proactive and harden their property.
 #1590633  by scratchyX1
 
Red Wing wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 3:59 pm What's the cost to benefit ratio. It appears to me that UP doesn't care yet because it's cheaper to pay the insurance than be proactive and harden their property.
Pretty much my thought
 #1590639  by Bracdude181
 
@Red Wing Conrail North Jersey has been doing just that in Central NJ for many years now. No security whatsoever in Central NJ where hundreds of people walk on the tracks and try to jump on it while it’s moving.

I’m going on a limb a little bit when I say this, but maybe something that can be done to prevent this sort of thing in the future is to use intermodal cars that keep the container ends very close to each other as much as possible and/or feasible? Only thing is most of these cars don’t support double stacking, and that might be a problem.

Edit: Or design a more theft proof container?
 #1590642  by eolesen
 
Auto carriers had to evolve to become more secure, but that's more or less a captive Fleet of equipment. Trying to re-engineer shipping containers would be a daunting task given the millions that currently exist.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

 #1590645  by ExCon90
 
Just what I was thinking. And of those millions of containers now roaming the world, any one of them might turn up on a North American railroad, but only a small percentage of them actually will. Another challenge would be to provide better door securement that would make it impossibly difficult for a thief to break in without making it equally difficult for the legitimate consignee to open it at destination. I think any effort to thwart break-ins has to be focused on the trains rather than the containers.
 #1590699  by Bracdude181
 
@ExCon90 Not impossible to do it on the trains but most (if not all) American designed intermodal cars in use keep the containers well separated, and the ones that don’t aren’t capable of double stacking. For the Class 1s that might be a problem.
 #1591018  by BR&P
 
Gilbert B Norman wrote: This phenomenon simply seems like one more offshoot of the pervasive lawlessness our society has faced during the COVID era. We've all certainly observed "70 in a 45", verbal abuse of public contact employees, and have learned of (hopefully not observed) the brazen burglaries confronting retail merchants.

One of these days, COVID will end (even if I fear Omicron will not be the last of the variants) and hopefully with it this societal lawlessness.
This has NOTHING to do with COVID. It was against the law to break into railcars before the illness, it's still just as illegal today. And if COVID ended this afternoon, it would still be prohibited the same.

What HAS changed is our society is attempting to deny or evade REALITY. Which can't be done - not by changing the names of things, not by ignoring events, not by trying to be more "caring" or whatever. The result is we have removed consequences for improper behavior. And thus there is no reason for people to obey the law.

Look, I think I'm a pretty good driver. I believe on a sunny day, with light traffic, I can safely go 80 mph on the Interstate. However, I know if I do, I'll get a ticket, pay a fine, pay higher insurance, and maybe lose my license. The consequences deter me from doing it. Let's say the only thing an officer could do was shake his finger at me and say "no-no". In THAT case, I might be quite willing to put up with it and drive 80.

There needs to be consequences for all crimes, including theft from trains, and those consequences need to be unhappy. We need to make the crooks wish they had never done the crime. And we need to make them want to avoid a future repeat. As long as crooks are given more sympathy and rights than their victims, they will just keep doing it over and over and over.

Does anybody truly believe that if COVID goes away, the thugs will magically stop looting containers?
 #1591037  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Mr. BR&P, I indeed respect your immediate comments - and agree.

For 256 years, our country has had a "rule of law" where even if you didn't agree, you respected it, and the few who did not were punished.

Now with so much of our society, that "rule" is breaking down.

Understaffed police forces simply cannot pursue all the "bad guys". I've learned of cases where understaffed jurisdictions have had to return their detectives to patrol.

I'll name this one; Davidson County TN (that's Nashville) where I learned (have friends there) they were short 105 officers. That means where they were responsible for highway patrol; uh, it was highways not patrolled - and I've seen it myself on the Nashville bypass known as the Brilley Parkway - 80 in a 55 - and I was a potential target!!!

I've further learned from a friend, whose Daughter is a police officer in a "larger Southeastern city" and had been a Detective until, account staffing, she got reassigned to patrol. A case she worked, where they had the suspect "cold" on Murder 1 and the jury felt same, ended up sentenced "25 to Life", but only served ONE YEAR.

All told to close on topic, for the non-violent crime of "ripping off lading from some rich railroad", so what, says the LAPD.
 #1591056  by BR&P
 
Agreed!

I don't claim to have ALL the answers, nor do I want to turn this into political debate. But I do object to a few of the comments expressed in some of the aforementioned news articles, when it's been suggested it's up to UP to deal with the problem on their tracks. As Mr. Norman says, when the authorities have neither the human nor financial resources to deal with murders, cargo theft is much lower on the scale. And when the system declines to prosecute such crimes when perps ARE apprehended, UP is fighting a stacked deck.

Ultimately, the citizens of that area will decide at the ballot box whether they view such larceny acceptable. If they do continue the status quo, then UP will decide whether to continue operating there. At some point a business decision must be made whether such loss will be tolerated. Perhaps UP will add a X dollar surcharge on each shipment using that route, in anticipation of L&D payouts.

And there have been SOME reports of shippers changing their routings, to avoid CA ports entirely. The longer the present situation continues, the more attractive other options become.
 #1591060  by eolesen
 
This isn't about a lack of enforcement or understaffing. UPRR has been busting the offenders they catch.

It's more about the lack of prosecutions. UPRR hands them over to the jailhouse, and then they're being released with no bail being set (some just to return and do the same crime the next day).

It's one thing to arrest people, but if they're not held accountable by the attorneys general in each county/city/state, then yeah, the laws no longer work as a deterrent.

And if the locals won't prosecute or set bail, then UPRR arresting them is counter-productive.

If UP police were visible in the trench with semi-automatic or automatic rifles, perhaps the thugs might think twice about doing that smash and grab... Armed security is a great deterrent factor elsewhere.
 #1591080  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Mr. Olesen, I believe you'll find that UP Police are sworn peace officers, and thus are "packing". They aren't "Mall Cops".

But otherwise wholly agree with your thoughts.
 #1591087  by BR&P
 
While the UP Police may be armed, they are bound by the same limits - legal and societal - as their municipal counterparts. Whether it's a pistol on their hip or a semi-automatic rifle, the same limits apply. As effective as it might seem, they obviously can't just start picking off everybody they see looting a container. And the thugs KNOW the cops' hands are tied, and use that to their own advantage.
 #1591145  by Red Wing
 
Comparing a a private corporation that answers to shareholders to a public police force is like comparing apples to oranges. Though for an analogy, the stockholders don't care but on the public side the public has spoken and said how they want their duly elected DA to do their job.

And yes as is fashionable I have shares in UP.
 #1591150  by scratchyX1
 
BR&P wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 10:08 pm While the UP Police may be armed, they are bound by the same limits - legal and societal - as their municipal counterparts. Whether it's a pistol on their hip or a semi-automatic rifle, the same limits apply. As effective as it might seem, they obviously can't just start picking off everybody they see looting a container. And the thugs KNOW the cops' hands are tied, and use that to their own advantage.
Shooting warning shots at people with guns is looked down on, when they aren't firing first.
Perhaps UP could look at one of the sonic devices developed for crowd control.
or use that fancy PSR to have trains on a schedule, so they aren't sitting around to be a target.