Deleted - Duplicate thread glitch...

I remember we had several horns stolen off our GP38-2 switcher that was in a fenced in area in a Intermodal yard. Found out later it was truck drivers stealing those horns and putting them on their trucks.

Stainless security bolts like the ones in the links some other posters provided are a good choice. Stainless steel is difficult to drill and even a grinder with a metal cut off wheel can take some time (as the metal will usually get red hot and stop cutting). Motion detecting lighting with bright lights is usually enough to deter most people.

One other point:

An intrepid thief (someone who knows what they're doing) can just as easily disassemble most of the horn's components, given time, and leave you with nothing more than the base and bottom of the manifold. I've seen the aftermath on one Chicago-area locomotive.

It's probably not worth it for an unattractive "honker" or S2, but I would not leave an M-series outside without security bolts in the horn manifold itself, if possible!

I don't understand the fascination with cameras, as far as I can tell, all you wind up with is a video of someone stealing from you, nothing ever happens. I think Ross has the right idea!

Uhhhh.... Cameras don’t maul the intruder and then initiate lawsuits that will kill your organization. Well, at least ours don’t. I don’t know what kind of vicious cameras others may have ;>)

This, this, this. Have your good guy wet dreams of shotguns and vicious dogs all you want, but cameras are the sensible way to go in such a litigious society

Best bet is harden the target.

Cops here the the Northeast have said that most cameras won't help, even with hi-resolution images. And trail cams aren't very hi-res. We've gotten readable license plate numbers, and it didn't do any good. In most jurisdictions, property crimes are not prosecuted, even with the perp arrested. It gets "plead out".

Harden the target. Lights, fences, fasteners that aren't easy to get loose. Have your people come and go at odd hours. Check out and report unusual vehicles near your facilities. Etc. Etc.

Rottweilers and shotguns are a fantasy, just like seeing a re-created full operating version of the 1935 Century go north out of Harmon again, 12 heavyweight Pullmans behind a J-1e.

Howard P.
Cynical, Conn.

Sadly here in NJ, and I'm sure in other parts of the country, the police and courts don't take theft of rail things too seriously. As I have related before, in my case the cops didn't care about the fact that a locomotive was basically damaged beyond any economical repair by the theft of it's traction motor cables. They only insisted on reporting the value of the cable itself. Now, if it involved a rape, murder or arson, my complaint have gotten far more attention.

Electric fences? My friends know my favorite voltage, I'm afraid. Sadly it would vaporize the perps and it would become lawsuit time. Just for trying to protect private property.

EDM
Zorch, NJ

Part of the answer I found involves a bit of 'theatre'. Use high-voltage Tesla-coil connection for some of your isolated fencing; set it to pulse with relatively high frequency but relatively low duty cycle (which will keep it active in poor weather or fence-maintenance conditions). Then post appropriate pacemaker, CHF, etc. alerts, but don't be too specific about the specific cause.

Instead of 'shocking' the perps, this causes alarming-looking blue sparks to start propagating toward overly intrusive little hands, getting angrier and brighter at their ends the closer they come. Few will realize there is more 'bark than bite' in this non-mantrapping solution; if they do in fact ground it out, there's your trigger for alarm response -- perhaps silent, to chosen responders; perhaps enabling cameras and IR/ultrasonic sensors and high-resolution camera tracking...

I rented out my house in Englewood for a while as a 'filming site' and rebuilt some of the utilities to facilitate that work. Invariably there would be one nosy parker I'd catch upstairs 'casing' the rooms, or looking at the alarm system. I'd be friendly and note 'oh, see these wires? They're just dummies, the actual system is HERE..." and walk them down to the basement where I had a 4160V switch rigged up with its bicycle chain and some appropriate million-to-10-turns coil action set up. It was always fun to see the eyes get big at the resulting CRASH! and spark show.

In the '70s almost every house on Lydecker Street was knocked over at least once, some of them 3x that I knew of. Strangely, mine never was...

My personal preference for 'theftproofing' involves filling over the head of the fastener with some reasonably hard filler that has been impregnated with Stellite particles and grit to frustrate attempts at grinding a slot. If you aren't planning on removing an item 'without a fight' you can overbraze these with hard particles incorporated in the braze metal, then use torch and compressed air to remove this at need. Many thieves will probably assume this is a weld of some kind and they may 'move on' to softer perceived targets...

What I recommend if you have high-resolution results is the time-tested 'cheating wife' solution: Print up signs and posters with the perpetrator faces, cars, license-plate numbers. Distribute them in high-profile locations around the area, with appropriate notes about their trustworthiness or demonstrable lack thereof. Be sure to make special copies for every scrapyard within a few hundred miles, including specific language that any purchases they make from these identified individuals will make them knowing accessories to any theft...

I’ll contribute to the thread drift.

My fantasy involves a smart target acquisition system that fires either fast acting tranquilizer darts or paint balls with indelible dye & skunk extract and then calls the authorities. Either would make identifying the perps extremely easy.

But until we get around the legality of such things, I’ll investigate the less expensive fastener route.

You need Amperage behind that voltage to do any damage.

I remember reading about a trolley museum that had over $100k of damage done. While it was suggested the perps were kids from low-income areas, my question is did the museum put a lean on all there assets and benefits? No, you won't get your money back but everyone in the nationhood will learn that there Booze and drug benefit money will disappear and if you play your cards right you can even get the police to enter the apartment and confiscate their stuff (I wonder what else they will find). Word will travel very fast not to mess with those people. If an individual can foreclose on a large bank https://www.cnbc.com/id/41645307 I am sure a railroad museum can do the same on some parents. Also if you have cameras that send cell phone notifications you can call the cops and be likely to catch them in the act or scare them away.

RCD- I'm not a PRR fan, but the G motors ran great on 11kV! And I do know a just tiny bit about electricity.

We have successfully caught and prosecuted a theft thanks to a trail camera in a tree.

Our shop has a professional cctv camera system. It can be viewed in the office and on our resident caretaker’s iPad. We’ve had our fences cut to the point that as new cuts appear, we’ll overlay military grade fencing over the commercial grade chain link.

When I installed a cast iron sign at a pedestrian crossing at TVRM, we capped an old boiler flue, poured a couple hundred pounds of concrete to set the post and then riveted the threaded end of the bolt after securing the nuts by heating the ends and smashing them flat with a hammer.