Speaking of copper thefts...

I did some research several weeks ago because lately in the Twin Cities we've had a spate of copper thefts. In one recent instance, the miscreants actually pulled the wire out of an underground conduit that fed power to street lights in St. Paul! Cheeky, eh?

Most trolley museums have a fair amount of spare trolley wire. But do they have enough to cover a major theft such as a half-mile of copper trolley wire or even a longer length? The bigger outfits probably do--our Museum doesn't. So, being our Museum's resident worry-wart, I started to dig into this situation and come to find out our property insurance did not cover the theft/loss of our copper trolley wire. So, we have arranged coverage for that contingency. Since we have only a small amount of trolley wire on hand right now, I did some further investigating and learned that new 2/0 hard-drawn copper grooved trolley wire comes in 1,000 pound reels, nothing less. That equates to about 2,400 feet of the wire. The cost? It fluctuates with the market price but as of my research a reel was going for a cool $7,400.

So, now we have a special rider to our insurance policy for $8,000 to help us out if the thieves stole a little over a half-mile of trolley wire.

Helluva waste of money but we have to do something to ease the blow in the event thieves hit us for some length of our wire.

Thanks!