Pasted from other forum..

Star Trak Inc.
1 Railroad Avenue
Lebanon NJ 08833
(732) 236-4507

October 10, 2006

DOOR STOLEN FROM PRR GG-1 4877

Just days away from receiving fresh paint, one of the engineer's doors of the famous PRR GG1 4877 was stolen from Lebanon, N.J. The door has just been restored and is in primer gray, ready to be installed back on the body. Also stolen was a 20 foot extension ladder that was stored under the locomotive. A $500 reward is being offered for information leading to the return of this irreplaceable item and the arrest of the suspect.

--R.W. Clauss
President, Star Trak Inc.



Crazy. huh? I wonder what the new owner's plans are.... keep it locked in his basement never bringing it out to the light of day? Don't think he'd be sharing his valuable with any railroad buddies. I can just see the po-po raiding the house now "This door is HOT"...

-Jeffrey

This is precisely the reason the E&LS shops in Michigans U.P. don't let anyone on their property, and keep the sharks under tight lock and key.

I dont blame them one bit. Sadly there are many railfans out there that are so selfish that they would go out and steal irreplacable items such as the door.

Don't be too hasty to point fingers at some 'railfan' looking for a prize to hide in his den or garage-- the theft of metal to sell for scrap (usually for drug money) is exploding out of control. Thieves will take anything that's not fastened down, and often stuff that is. Just ask Doyle McCormack or anyone else recently hit by this disturbing trend. It's not uncommon now to read about thieves getting electrocuted trying to steal live power lines!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182188,00.html

Yeah, I understand that metals are really in high demand right now. I'm an apprentice electrition, and we keep our reels of wire (roughly 1100 lbs of copper each) under lock and key to prevent theft. If we leave any copper or other metals laying around, it gets taken.

Scrappers are living the good life right now! -Jeffrey

I can personally testify to the fact that metal thieves can render a locomotive unrestorable. The West Va. RR Museum wanted the ex-B&O, ex-DOT E8 hulk that had been at the B&O Museum's "back lot" for too long. It apparently arrived in terrible but still intact shape, but when we examined it for preparation to move to Elkins, we found that the copper air brake piping had all been cut out violently, that numerous fires had been set in the cab to burn off insulation from all the wiring scavenged in the cab, and that power saws had been taken to the main generators and wiring in the engine compartment in a rather vain attempt to steal more copper. I personally recommended against attempting to salvage the hulk, but instead they paid dearly to get the brake piping reinstalled for shipment--in black iron, not copper.

This should remain Exhibit A in why one should never store vintage equipment within four hundred feet of a scrap yard.

So what did the B&O Museum put in place of that E8, once again within four hundred feet of a scrap yard? PRR GG1 4876............ kiss it goodbye, folks.

This is one GG1 that should be cosmetically restored as a priority. It has just too much history to allow it to corrode into dust and be piecemeal butchered by the ignorant and drug addicted. I do believe that segment of track in Washington, D.C. , where she made her historic arrival, could be dedicated to her with an elegant photo display connecting the wreck to the political history of the moment. History should be vibrant, alive, and involve the public as an educational experience. The majority of those who walk through that space have no idea of what happened there 50 years ago.

Ah yes stolen railroad artifacts…

Given today’s return on recycled metals the “Bad Guys” are certainly out in strength. In the recent past very specific artifacts like Bells, Whistles and Number Plates have been stolen from both Strasburg PA and Cass WVa to name a few where the main purpose is the collection of Artifacts where artifact destruction was not the goal just greed for the item stolen, Heck talk about brazen recently Steam Whistles were stolen off the Shays at Cass while they were hot around the shops! I hate to say it but now as it’s been said were up against even worse people now than before (If there are worse people) not only are we losing pieces of our artifacts but in a specifically destructive manor, no hope of these items ever turning up again at a rail-swap or a rail fans basement or garage. Today we are dealing with “motivated” scrap minded thieves. Today anything not under direct supervision or locked under a ridicules amount of protection like a building, alarms, fencing, heavy pedestrian traffic and so on to overt prying hands with hopes there efforts might get them a couple of dollars.

Just recently our Preservation and Restoration group was running a load of our own scrap metal for recycling to pocket some funds to put back into our efforts when while at the scrap yard we started to see items that belonged to our group, from cast steps, to passenger car parts most are quite heavy. To our delight the offenders who were just leaving were the ones who just got $23.00 for our much needed car parts. One of our alert members jotted down the tag number of there truck, and we reported it. Later that day the Police contacted us to inform us that indeed this vehicle belonged to a person with a history of petty theft and was trying to support a drug habit. The offenders admitted to the thefts when approached by the police at the residence were a lot more “Railroad” items/scrap was found. The police asked if we would like to prosecute and given this was not our first time with this and with the cost involved both time and money dealing with courts and even worse the fact of worrying about repercussion on our equipment once these fellows get out after a very short stay behind bars we decided we would let Norfolk Southern run with this one as they were prosecuting for the lose of there signal equipment. We decided to sit this one out (As we did get our equipment back, this time) letting NS look like the bad guys as we know that those who are put away soon get out and might not be too happy about it. We have learned a lesson and have purchase a second storage car (Box Car) to keep the grounds clean and picked up not to mention keeping everything behind lock and key regardless of weight and metal construction.

You want your GG-1 Door back, I’d recommend you locate and check with you local scrap yards (it helps if you have a picture of what your looking for) you would be surprised as to what enters the scrap yards illegally. No proof of ownership needed to recycle and as said if it’s not locked up or supervised it’s GONE. Good luck in your search I hope you find it, time is important turnaround at most scrap yards is fairly fast so get out there and check before it’s tomorrows Toaster.

Unfortunately I have many of stories about artifacts being stolen and or raided for parts and materials, some have been recovered even more have not.

Best of luck!

The metal theft problem is getting out of hand.

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries http://www.isri.org has a theft alert program which is supposed to help spread alerts of recent thefts to its members. It might not hurt to submit theft reports to them in addition to
law enforcement.

(It's interesting to read their reports of recent thefts. They show how big the problem is.)

I wouldn't worry about looking like the bad guy. Someone steals, THEY'RE the bad guy. Stealing is bad enough, but destroying our history is inexcusable.(sp)

...history of drug habit.... repercussion.... we dicded to sit this one out

I have more experience working with drug abusers than with preservation. Most of these guys are not as concerned about repercussions as they are about where to get the money for their next fix. In the eyes of the drug user, they view you as an easy target since you did not prosecute. Smart to lock things up, since they will likely be back or at least their friends will. If you are prosecuting, there is minimal financial cost involved, only time and lots of aggrivation.

In my unprofessional opinion it seems that the key is a close contact with the scrap dealers. I think each railroad preservation organization should make contact with local scrap dealers prior to any ugly events. Makes it easier to pick up the phone and tell them to be on the look out for locomotive door.

I'd like to hear a little more about the 4877 restoration beyond stolen doors. Glad to hear it's getting attention.

Tom

This whole scrap thing has gotten REALLY out of hand.

I had a chance to get some vintage Hall Signal Company relay cases this past year, and as an added "bonus" there were said to be some shelf relays intact (GRS stuff). The relays were a bonus.

Well, the cases were fine. The relays were trashed, after someone decided to remove the coils and leave the relays hanging by the wires in the elements.

No "scrap" is too small, I guess. Like I said...at least the cases were fine. I guess their weight and bulk "saved" them.

Just in the last year on the A&R we have had cooper stolen from our shop twice, track OTM stolen from several different locations, and even caught some people cutting up 100 pound rail for scrap. A contractor had a railsaw stolen from the jobsite while we were working. We prosecute when the law will but around here if the perpatrators are known by the local police or magistrate you can forget prosecution. Someone will simply refuse to to take the case far enough to get the people charged. Believe me the powers that be have any number of ways to keep their friends out of trouble. Even when a case goes to trial a slap on the wrist is the best we can expect. The druggies are back on the street before we even know it.

The problem is most certainly out of hand.

John Bohon

Well Guys (Dave, Tom) I hear you both loud and clear,

First to address your statements Dave:



We know they are the bad guys but if it comes down to a mega Corp. (NS) sending in it’s prosecutors to take car of the dirty work (Bad guys) or that we use our time and energy to address the issue as individuals who are volunteers trying to restore this things in our valuable spare time I think will let them (NS) run with it, any way we have a very good working relationship with the railroad locally and It’s just fine for us to let them run with it. I don’t know about you but I can’t miss work and other important issues to be in court all week over and over again, the railroad pays people to do this. I’m already pulling my fare share of jury duty (Wish I could get off that list for a bit).

Tom as for what you had to say:



I don’t thank you quite caught what I was trying to say… repercussions on our equipment is what we would be worried about considering we are dealing with people who have nothing to lose, and as for cost I'm mostly talking about our time (time is money). We have already had a caboose broken into and burned out and would rather not ask for that again. One thing I do agree with you on and that is developing a good relationship with the local scrap yards, which our group has been doing for close to 15 years now. There are 6 scrap yards of respectable size in our area and all but one of them has rail access and handles railroad scrap. They even call us to let us know when they have something they think we might want, what they would get from us to buy it is generally more than it’s scrap value. The last Heavyweight Pullman car we bought from NS through a local scrap dealer turned out to be a Platform OBS off the B&O and we picked it up for $3000.00!

Any way we're getting away from the topic, YES developing relationships with local scrapers pay's off in more ways than one!

Good luck to all on Your Preservation & Restoration work!

For..... the..... last........ freakin'........ time...................

IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

Not as long as there are commercial passenger trains running in and out of Washington Union Terminal, it won't.

And if 4876 sits in its current location for anything more than a few weeks, it's not likely that loco will ever see preservation.

We had about 40 copper railbonds stolen from our Excelsior Streetcar Line operating site a few months back. These were not the standard four-inch electric railway railbonds but the 18-inch long cadweld type. So, they contained much more copper than a standard railbond.

And then there was the theft of trolley wire and feeder cable from the Yakima Valley heritage operation this past summer. I think that involved at least a couple of miles of copper trolley wire and adjacent feeder cables.

I partially blame the crooked scrap dealers, If there wasn;t a market for the stolen items then there would be no point in taking the stuff.

Thanks!