I hope they catch those who did this and lock them up and throw away the key.

Nowadays it seem that this is called a prank by those doing it.

They do not seem to recall that a prank is something that you go back later and restore to how you found it (April's fools pranks). Emblems that represent dangerous ideals such as the swastika are never pranks.

These are law breakers.

A few years ago, some seniors in high school took a baseball bat and repeatedly rode in the same neighborhood bashing mailboxes. One homeowner got so made, he chased the car and caught the culprits. The father of the 18 year old complained to the press that it was a "harmless" prank and it would ruin his son's ability to go to college on a football scholarship.

The father should have taught his son better. The son knew better (probably) and did it anyway. He needed to pay for his actions. Unfortunately (in this case), the offense was settled out of court and the records sealed.

DvV

That museum is located in a bad town with a high crime rate. In the old days you could keep guard with a shot gun full of rock salt and if those vandals couldn't run fast enough they have one sore backside. Now that is considered assault so even if someone was there all they could have done is called the police. This is the kind of thing that pisses me off.

It's very simple: property crimes are not prosecuted in CT. I would bet that if they are found, little or nothing will happen to these animals.

Three years ago, RMNE suffered a criminal arson and break-in (a fence was deliberately cut, a locked rail car was broken into and set on fire and gutted); the 5 perps were caught (they bragged and confessed) the next day. One was over 18, the rest were "of tender years". Our dealings with the state's attorney were contemptible, laughable and eye-opening.

Final result: some "community service" that did not benefit RMNE (they were not permitted to do anything that was "strenuous" or "dangerous", like working on railroad track or cars), a feeble attempt at financial restitution (less than 1/10th of the agreed-upon amount was ever paid), and total contempt for the criminal justice "system" on the part of many hard-working museum volunteers.

The lesson is clear: defend your own perimeter as best as you can; you will get no help from the "system".

Howard P.
Hardened Cynic, CT

If that's so, then they simply need to move. I see no way to protect a railway museum from that kind of problem.

There's a station museum of my acquaintance that suffered a couple break-ins, then installed a REAL alarm system, with the help of the nearby fire department.

The first time it went off, the police came within about 3-4 minutes. What they found was large pools of blood from where the perp apparently gashed himself on the cut grating or broken glass of the window he accessed and then fled back through--enough spilled blood that the police went from checking emergency rooms to looking for the body of someone who may have bled to death. Gee--ya think they overdid it hooking the alarm up to air horns hidden in the rafters?

In these days of cheap technology, a real alarm system with HD video is a great investment. Cheap cameras that can be put all over the place, and nearly endless recording time on off the shelf disk drives.

Making it known that any vandals are getting logged turns many away. It has in New York City. The police make a point of showing people that their cameras show clear faces, and not just blurred figures.

--
Will

If you put your museum in a run down vandal zone then you will get vandalized. The site of this museum is in a portion of a small city, large town which would need a huge fence, machine gun nests and constantine wire to protect it. With all the drug addicts, prostitutes and others than hang around the center of this town, I am surprised that anything not locked up of welded down isn't stolen or destroyed.

I wish the museum luck, I just don't have confidence that this won't be a ongoing event for this museum at this site.

Howard P's post reminded me of an incident we had in Victoria BC in 2000. Our roundhouse/coach yard was on the edge of a rough neighborhood full of rowdy teens. About the 2nd. week we were there we started getting tagged regularly so we hired guards for night duty 7 nights/week. Even with that, one Friday night the guards caught 3 of them in the act spray cans and all. The guards restrained them with plastic tie type handcuffs and placed them in a coach we had ripped out for later restoration and then called me ( at about 0400 Sat. morning) to report the incident.

I told them to secure them in the coach and that I would take over the matter when I arrived in the yard. I told them that I would handle advising the authorities.As Howard posted, we had previously caught and turned into the police a number of taggers and were basically told by the cops that the system was so screwed up that with any of them under 18 yrs. old nothing would be done to them regardless of the damage they may have caused!!

Well as life sometimes goes I was not able to get to the yard until after church on Sunday morning and then remembered that I needed to attend to our "guests" in the coach. The 36 hours with us ( during which time they had been TOTALLY ignored) had done wonders for their attitude. I told them that anyone else caught in our yard would recieve MUCH greater punishment..... and that was a promise not a threat!!!

We kept the guards on duty but never had another incident!!!

I guess sometimes actions do speak louder than words!!

Ross Rowland

I am extremely surprised that you were not arrested and sued for assault, kidnapping, and a host of other charges. I can't imagine that imprisoning people for 36 hours without access to food, water, and rest room facilities would not be "actionable." In the States, you would now be reporting to your new bosses, the miscreants, as they would own everything you used to own. (I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on television. Others are probably more qualified to comment.)

In fairness to the truth it's important to add to my scenario that the Victoria BC police were as disgusted with the whole situation as those of us who were being victimized by these punks. We knew whose side they were on and that undoubtedly had some bearing on our actions.

I have noticed that since we left BC that they have finally made the penalties for tagging a lot stiffer AND are enforcing them. I'm told that the city of Victoria is now practically tag free!!

That's a good thing!!

Ross Rowland

Upon arrival at the Tod Engine Heritage Park this morning I found that someone had stolen the stator and armature of an old welder that I had cut up for scrap. Didn't touch anything else, although there were other tools laying about. That theft did light a fire under me to complete the fencing of the property, so over the next few days I'll be sinking posts and stretching chainlink. I was getting way too complacent!

SIMPLE solution to the vandalism problem-secure the perimeter and stock the area with a couple of vandal- eatin' dawgs-at NIGHT.

Unlike human guards, the dogs don't doze off at night as they don't get fed 'til morning.

NYCTA took it one better-they built a double row of 12' fence (with RAZOR wire)around their facilities, and inserted the canines between the fences. If a skel managed to get over through the first fence, they weren't getting over the second fence unscathed !!!

DPK

In the mid 90s, a friend of mine in Atlanta sold firearms to local police departments for a living. He had problems with the local “taggers” who often sprayed up a barn he owned because it was highly visible from the road. He found a unique solution when he caught one of them and found it wasn’t a gang thing for this guy. That guy rolled on buddies who’d done the same thing and was proud of the fact the cops wouldn’t do anything (which they didn’t). Through his law enforcement connections, he found out where the tagger lived and found who to contact in the gangs of the area to let them know who’s property THEY should mark up, and offered financial incentives. The tagger guy (and two of his friends) wound up having to remove “tagging” on the sides of their own houses and cars for years after that, and the cops never seemed motivated to find who was doing it then, either.

Howard's description of the criminal justice system reflects the state of affairs in North Carolina. It is often difficult get the police to write a report because they consider it a waste of time. Nothing will ever happen to those at fault so why bother? Even when caught in the act the system refuses to prosecute and the suspects sometimes never even see the inside of a jail cell. I have long had contempt for the criminal justice system for the way they protect the guilty.

John Bohon