The wire wasn't energized? He'd've been zapped before he tried to make one cut.

They haven't replaced the wire yet?

The news report says that the stolen wire was cut into pieces for easier transportation, rendering it useless for a trolley line. As a retired power company employee and long-time volunteer in electric railway preservation, I have nothing but contempt and loathing for scrap metal thieves. Although the state penal codes provide for what I consider to be thoroughly inadequate sentences (what I would impose would violate the Constitution's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishments"), sometime the Laws of Physics supercede the statute books. We had a case here in the Los Angeles area in which some scumbag tried to steal wire from a vacant building. He found out the hard way that the electric service was still energized, and 440 volts will "barbecue" anyone who gets between "hot" and "ground". And it isn't just us railway fans who have been touched by the scrap thieves--in Redondo Beach CA, a bronze sculpture honoring George Freeth, a pioneer in the sport of surfing and also seashore livesaving was stolen for its scrap value, a tiny fraction of its worth as an art object and tribute. I'm probably not the only one on this forum who thinks, "if your life is so wretched that you have to commit theft, and cause damage far beyond the scrap value of the stolen goods, you don't deserve to live." (note to moderators: If you think this is too strong, feel free to delete or edit it. I tend to get rather heated when this subject comes up)

While it's tempting to leave the power on so would-be thieves get BBQ'd, I suspect they have a couple reasons to de-energize the line.

First of all, having the power constantly may well involve some additional expense for electricity. I guess if it was an ideal situation, with no current leak etc, then there would be be any electricity moving through the wires. In the real world, I'm not sure if it works that way or not. I also don't know what kind of wear (if any) it would have on the various components and transformers etc.

The second, and most likely reason, is that they don't want the risk of a hot wire being dropped into the street by a falling tree or windstorm or car crash etc, and the resulting risk of injury or death to innocent bystanders, stray livestock etc.

Once again, in an ideal world the circuit would instantly cut the power, but I saw one trolley operation have the overhead taken down by a tall load on a passing truck. The wire hit the rails and danced around, throwing off very impressive showers of sparks. This really impressed my crew, as we had just finished installing some rail bonds on that track. They all told they'd have been fried if it had happened earlier. I replied that since the rail was the ground part of the circuit, the current would continue to flow through that, rather than grounding through them (The same as it did already when we were working on the line and the trolley was running.) Of course the immediate reply was "OK, so prove it! Go touch the rail!" I couldn't quite work up enough faith in my theory to give it a try.

Bob Davis: I quite agree with you (in all respects). But you're forgetting the other side of this disgusting equation--- the scrap dealers who willingly and enthusiastically purchase the stuff. For one example, the bronze plaques and sculptures, dragged in by an obvious skell? No way that's a legit transaction. Or brand-new copper pipe/tubing?? In my opinion and long observation, the scrap dealers know full well that upwards of 50% of non-ferrous metals presented to their scales, are purloined.

Howard P.
Dollar-A-Pound, NY

What I would do is send a trust worthy volunteer to hit up various scrap dealers with obvious railroad related scrap (stuff your organization was going to get rid of anyway) then have said volunteer make up some BS story about where he got it (if asked) the scrap dealers who ask and give him a hard time get you future business, the ones who don't get blacklisted. And of course all money from sold scrap goes back to the organization.

Here in Arizona, Arizona Revised Statutes Title 44-1641 through 44-1647 address scrap metal dealer operations. Under the provisions of ARS 44-1644 version 2, upon receipt of metals addressed in the statute, the dealers are required to report the receipt of the materials to the Department of Public Safety within 24 hours of receiving the materials, which must be held for seven days before the transaction may be completed. Payment for receipt of scrap metals in cash at the time of receipt is prohibited-payment may be made only in the form of a check mailed to a mailing address. State, federal or tribal issued identification is required to be verified and recorded when processing a transaction.

Unfortunately, failure to report a transaction as required by ARS 44-1644 version 2 is only a Class 1 Misdemeanor-six months in the state pen if convicted. That said, DPS and the state have other issues that are more pressing than this-chiefly the economy and keeping the extreme narco violence going on in Sonora, Mexico from spilling over the border.

Of course, all this does is punish the legitimate scrap dealers by imposing additional requirements on their operations. The fly by night dealers still get what they want. We've pretty much come to the conclusion that we have to take whatever actions are necessary to protect our wire-short of leaving it energized continually. That would be expensive and I am certain that the City's Risk Management department would not approve of that.

How about keeping it energized using something similar to an electric fence power unit? Anyone that tries to steal the wire would be in for quite a surprise! After changing their shorts, they are most likely going to assume that the wire is fully energized, and give up.

--
Will

Another idea -

It would not be hard to add a circuit (a Time Domain Reflectometer, basically) that would detect a cut wire, and make appropriate phone calls automatically. Meet the criminals minutes later...

--
Will

For a trolley museum that energizes its wire using an old-style AC-DC rotary converter, running the rotary costs money. Generators, the same. With modern (1970s and since) rectifier technology, the conversion does not really cost that much. With such systems, power costs more directly relate to the amount of electrical usage by trains that operate on the railroad.

High voltage systems do deter thieves. That's all I am going to say about it.

It's perfectly conventional for power to be on 24x7. That is the case on most electric transit systems. Rotary substations should not be left on 24x7 because of the wear. That's much less of a problem for semiconductor sub's, but still-- there is equipment in there that will wear and fatigue. Especially delicate, expensive business like the "type 76 overcurrent relays".

Now, Orange Empire has a way to energize 24x7 without taxing any of their big substations. They have a "mini-sub" which produces only a few KW and is on 24x7. I've heard a story told where someone wanted to take out a PCC, so he put the pole up. The car came to life, much to the fellow's relief - no need for a trip to the substation. Anyway, he pumped up air and pulled it out of the barn. Loaded his friends onto the car, took some points, and the Lights Went Out. Going on back to the substation, he found the main substation was NOT on, and the mini-sub had a blown fuse. It had tried.

The "automatic substation" was a scheme to avoid the problem of wearing out rotaries. They would monitor line voltage, start on low line voltage and shut off on low current. The Sacramento Northern had all automatic substations, except at the near halfway point at Chipps, which was manned 24x7 being a ferry dock. If a solitary Oakland train put up a pole, the compressor draw would sag the voltage down 40 miles of voltage drop. The substation at Pinehurst would detct the low voltage, and spin up. It would spin down after you got far enough away to not draw much current.

Combine these two ideas: the Orange Empire mini-sub, and semiconductor automatic substations that can switch on literally in seconds. The mini-sub keeps the wire hot, and when a car puts up a pole, the voltage drop tells a big substation to switch on. Put a big resistor in series with the mini-sub, so voltage will drop to near-zero instead of blowing a fuse.

The trolley museum at Arden, Pa. back in 1954 bought part of an intact trolley line complete with overhead wire, but no electricity. An early member worked in the Signal Dept. of the parallel Pennsylvania RR. He arranged for line side railroad signal wires with a fault detection circuit to be connected to either end of the trolley wire. If someone cut the wire, a trouble light would shine in a Pittsburgh office and someone else could be notified. I don't know if the system could give the approximate location of the cut, but that can be done with underseas communication cables.

50,000 Volts at 500mA :)

As a volunteer I can answer some of the basics on this.

Several people have been actively involved in getting the wires restrung to Selah. We have new wire but we are working through some issues with the local power company in regards to relocating the feeder wire. An alarm system has been designed to detect if anyone cuts into the wire. The problem is a small crew is trying to tackle a big job but we all look forward to seeing the trolley once again run through the Selah Gap.

Richard Wilkens
Volunteer
Yakima Valley Trolleys

It is actually quite easy to do, using the aforementioned TDR. Basically, at one end of the cable, you send out a sharp pulse. Then, you listen for anything to come back. If the cable is intact and terminated, you do not get anything back. If the cable has a break somewhere, you will get a pulse back, sort of like an echo off a brick wall. If you time the echo, you can figure out where the break is quite accurately.

How could this be applied to a rail museum? An old Hewlett Packard TDR with a GPIB (General Purpose Instrumentation Bus) port, an old computer with a GPIB card, a simple script running on the computer to monitor the TDR and shoot out email if something goes fishy, and a train geek college kid to put it all together for less that $100. Remember to feed him pizza and give him a cab ride.

--
Will