Thieves broke into one of the carbarns at the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor, Connecticut and stripped the cars inside of what copper wire and brass hardware they could easily remove.
http://windsorlocks.patch.com/articles/trolley-museum-vandalized-in-copper-theft

The theft was discovered on Saturday, 2/18/12. The Museum was hit with a break-in back in the summer of 2011. Very sad.

Thanks!

This looks like "Woods Barn"? east of the visitor center along the mainline. I see a Conn Co open car in the background of one photo. Does anyone have more information?

Wesley

It's time for Legislators to step up and toughen the laws for scrap dealers. There needs to be copies of photo IDs along with accurate logs of materials brought in and holding of all material for x days before reclamation. Of course this will penalize the honest dealers. A tougher approach on the dealers may help slow these activities.

In Connecticut photo ids are required its the courts that need to adequately punish scrap thieves. Marinas in my area of Ct have had shore power cords stolen from boats, The Valley Railroad has lost signal cable, rail hardware too. The problem is even if they're caught or if by some miracle the material recovered there is little ability to get restitution for damages. You can't get blood from a stone. The local news showed the damage at the Trolley museum, truly heartbreaking. We are really at a point where valuable resources need to be protected by cameras and alarm systems. Sadly this diverts dollars from the mission (or not) as alarm systems could also include fire as well.

Hi

It is difficult to see what all was stolen, how ever there are new parts being manufactured today and the museum should be able to get a quote on the value of the parts missing. Hopefully the museum is insured, the cars weren't burned to ground, so they should be able to recover from this set back.

Best of luck.

Karl Johnson

I can commiserate. The Trolley Museum of New York was hit a few months ago with copper theft. There were three arrests, two of which are reported here by Kingston Police:
http://www.tmny.org/Arrests.pdf

The arrests were made possible by the fact that the copper that they stole (4/O grooved trolley wire) was unique in the area and the scrap dealers recorded the names of the sellers.

Any news as to what cars were vandalized besides the Conn Co open in the background?

Wesley

According to an e-mail just received, the three vandalized cars were:
Connecticut Company open car No. 840.
Connecticut Company passenger car No. 1326
Centerville, Albia & Southern Freight motor No. 101 (one of the acquisitions from the late Lake Shore Electric museum.)

From the Museum's e-mail.
"Saturday morning, volunteers at the Connecticut Trolley Museum found three trolley cars dating back to 1905 stripped of their copper and brass components. Discovered during a convention of trolley enthusiasts from other trolley museums east of the Mississippi River, damage is estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Thieves were able to peel back a section of the metal siding on the barn to gain access. Once inside, crowbars were used to pry rass pieces off of the ceilings, windows, and exterior of these wooden cars doing extensive damage to the woodwork. Also, wiring was cut and some of the control gear was stripped out of the cars. The three cars that were stripped include car 1326 (the museum’s Birthday Car), car 840 (the last open car to operate in revenue service in the United States), and car 101 (a freight motor that the museum acquired in 2009). Now, all three will require extensive work before they can be returned to operation for museum patrons to enjoy. Parts were missing from a fourth car in the barn that was already partially disassembled.
In addition, the lock was cut on a track tool shed to gain access; however, it does not appear that any track materials were stolen."

Someone mentioned above that the parts can be replicated and the cars restored. Certainly that's true but valuable volunteer time and dollars will have to go to restore the cars simply because of a couple of brain-dead meth heads.

Thanks!

How desperate is this going to get? I'm beginning to worry that some park engines, and even some others under restoration may fall prey to this sort of thing.

I'm installing corrugated siding on the lower 10' of the interior of our steel building just for this purpose. Anyone with a 5/16" wrench can remove a siding panel off a metal building, but if there is another sheet metal wall screwed in from the other side then you will need to bring other tools to get in.

IMHO The people who commited this should be tied to the rails and hit by Springfield Terminal 12 at 30mph...

Given the proximity of the musuem to the Massachusetts border, I bet the goods ended up in the Springfield area.


EDIT: Cordless Sawzalls are any musuems nightmare.

You don't need a wrench to disassemble something, as a matter of fact these individuals could care less about "carefully" disassembling anything, battery powered saw-zalls and grinders with cut off wheels will do more damage and take less time for these people. They want the quick money for scrap for thier quick fix but will do major damage to do it.

Scrap thief presecution, fines and restitution in the current judicial system lacks at this time too.

Have people do a rotating check up on equipment and property. Even stored equipment needs to be checked on to make sure it's still secure and nothing has gone on with it. Where I am several of us take turns checking on fence perimeter security and the equipment stored behind it.

Learn your Geography before making stupid comments. The trolley museum is also close to Hartford which has a higher crime rate. And seeing that there have been simler problems in other museums in CT it makes Hartford more likely.

Are you a detective now? I know you're not a cop, nor a scrap dealer. Your own comment is pure speculation. I think you owe someone an apology for your opening statement.

Scrappers will take measures to avoid the law. Recently, in Waterbury, CT, there were two large bronze statues stollen from atop graves at a historic cemetery. The scrappers could have just travelled 3 miles away to the closest scrap yard, but they didn't. They didn't haul the bronze to Hartford either. They went to a yard in Bristol, which was a 14 mile ride that took about a half hour to make.

FYI- East Windsor is located half way between Springfield, MA and Hartford, CT. The trip to either city from East Windsor consists of a 17 mile ride that also takes about a half hour to make.

Consider today's geography lesson complete.

This is what happens when you steal copper from a project that I am working on:


I chased this guy for 3/4 of a mile up and down the streets of Swissvale last month after finding him in his encampment. I followed the duffel bag wheel marks all the way from Carrie Furnaces to his camp site, and when the three of us confronted him he ran off.

After catching him all the police could do was charge him with trespassing, a summary offence, since we didn't actually see him take anything. I have trail camera pictures of the guy from last June coming through a hole in our fence and also caught him up on the ore bridge one night. There is no way to get restitution from a homeless many anyways, the best we can hope for is that he moves on and never comes back.