Did anyone hear "All Things Considered" on NPR this morning? Apparently, since Argentina's economy collapsed two years ago, the poverty-stricken have found a business stealing metal and selling it on the scrap black market. The story mentioned the problem of historic preservation, as many ornate door knobs, statues and the like are being stolen and melted down. The best part of the interview was a guy who "smelled of wine and marijuana" waiting trackside for a train to stop so he could rip metal parts off of it. They said copper phone lines and aluminum train sides are the hottest commodities!

Ugh!

rdavis@rypn.org

> Did anyone hear "All Things
> Considered" on NPR this morning?
> Apparently, since Argentina's economy
> collapsed two years ago, the
> poverty-stricken have found a business
> stealing metal and selling it on the scrap
> black market. The story mentioned the
> problem of historic preservation, as many
> ornate door knobs, statues and the like are
> being stolen and melted down. The best part
> of the interview was a guy who "smelled
> of wine and marijuana" waiting
> trackside for a train to stop so he could
> rip metal parts off of it. They said copper
> phone lines and aluminum train sides are the
> hottest commodities!

> Ugh!
That's not as unusual as it may seem at first glance. It has been happening here in the good ol' USA for years.
Ten or fifteen years ago, copper was at an unusually high scrap price. People were actually ripping out power and phone lines in rural areas, burning the insulation off, and selling the copper for scrap.
The building leased by the F.O. 261 was fairly well stripped of its wires, having sat unused for a number of years and being visited by vandals, when the 261 moved in.
For a while in the '70s people were stealing older cars and selling them to salvage yards for the scrap price. Most, if not all, states now require salvage yards to have a valid title for each car they take in. This is the reason.
Right now it isn't happening so much in this country because scrap prices are very low. But wait a few years until scrap prices spike again, and you'll see it right here too.
Mark D.

> That's not as unusual as it may seem at
> first glance. It has been happening here in
> the good ol' USA for years.
>
Indeed, in many cities, you may see houses from which the aluminum siding has been peeled from ground level up as high as one can reach and storm windows and doors are missing as well. And aluminum lawn furniture is an endangered species in those neighborhoods!

K4s1361@hotmail.com

If I remember correctly the roundhouse and backshop at Spencer had much of their copper wire stolen before the state bought the property. I have also heard of diesel locomotives that had their traction motor leads and other large wires cut and sold for scrap. It is certainly not a new problem.

John



jhbohon@yahoo.com

South Africa has also suffered from similar problems. All of the stored steam at the various unguarded depots around the country have had their copper piping and bearing brasses stolen. This has even happened to preserved engines stored in fenced compounds. Two years ago, thieves stole the live overhead from one of the active Jo'burg suburban lines, bringing rush hour trains to a halt. That takes real nerve!

trainrider47@aol.com

Use the link below and then type "copper caper" and/or "scrap metal thieves" into the search box at the bottom of the page.


Culling Mankind
utweyesguy@aol.com

Stolen bearings reminds me of a cut of scrap Conrail cars with friction bearings stored on a siding at Brandtsville, PA about 1980. When they finally came to pull the cars out of the siding someone had gone down the back side of the cut and stolen the journal brasses out of every axle. There were probably a hundred cars so someone had lots of time and should have been pretty good at jacking journals and removing the brasses by the time they got them all.

John

jhbohon@yahoo.com