I grew up in a railroad family. My father was a dispatcher for the Pennsylvania RR. If you're old enough, you probably remember, back in the day, the railroads had telephone poles running next to the tracks. Some of these poles had six or eight spars with eight or ten lines on each one. Each of those lines was a pair of copper wires.sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Sat Dec 10, 2022 3:05 pm We still don't have lights on large stretches of our interstates because the copper thieves cut into the base of the lights and steal the copper. They back a pick up truck with a winch up to the poles in the median and off they go. Traffic going by sees them and calls it in but the cops can't get there before they'e gone. Every couple of years one of them will get zapped. MDOT has quit replacing the wiring so we just drive in the dark through those stretches.
https://www.wlbt.com/2022/07/12/mdot-sa ... are-blame/
Thieves used to find a secluded section of track, back up next to it in their pickup, throw a rope over all the wires and tie it to the bumper of the truck. Then they took off in the truck, pulling down 200-300 (maybe more) feet of all of those wires.
Also, prior to the seventies, most freight cars had "friction" bearings. That is, the end of each axle was machined to a smooth bearing surface. In the truck, above the axle, was a large block of solid brass, machined to match the axle. The bottom of the journal box was filled with oily rags that got just enough oil to the axle.
Sometimes the railroad would store a string of cars out on a lonely siding, away from town. Thieves would come along with large hydraulic jacks, jack up the car a few inches, taking the weight off the axle. The brass could then simply be pulled out with no tools. The brass blocks weighed at least 20 pounds. In one night, they could steal the brass from 40-50 freight cars. Each car had eight journals.