Trains halted after cable theft (BBC News)
 

Commuter and freight services are suspended in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk after 300 metres of cable is stolen.

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How the hell do you steal 300 meteres of cable? The weight must be incredible to start with. The mind boggles.
Paul.

Yeah, sounds weird, but it happened a few times on Manchester's Metrolink. They're professional criminals who can move in at night quickly, steal the cable quickly and move out.

On Metrolink they first find out about the theft when the first tram of the morning stops over the section of track that's been tampered with. :D

They seem to be very well organised criminals, possibly using a van which looks like a network rail one, and equipped with all the tools necessary, plus the obligatory hi-vis jackets (which is rather ironic for thieves).

With the price of copper soaring to all time highs, railway cables are too tempting these days.

How would you know a group of men 'working' lineside were not genuine?

i cant hlep but think that most of these cable thefts are inside jobs.

What makes you say that?

A good question. It's become such a problem now that Traincrew are encouraged to call the signaller if they are at all suspicious of any staff they see out on the track. It actually made it into the Weekly Operating notices (WONs). The Signallers have a hotline to Nitwit Rail Operations HQ, and it can be checked out quickly.

What's suspicious you may ask - well three blokes with angle grinders is !!

If they're stood next to a load of old scrap rail then it's feasible, but if they're out in the middle of nowhere, you'd be inclined to wonder just what it was they were going to cut up.

Sorry to ask a dim question, but what voltage goes through these cables.
You would hope it was about 4 million and then the problem would be solved in a flash. (No pun intended).
Paul.

It's a fair question. Given that they want to get the copper, the thickest cables will be the ones carrying traction current. If they were to cut though the 3rd rail supply cables they'd be looking at a nominal 750 volts DC. If they went for the OHLE cables or Substation Feeders they could be looking at 25 kV or more. The fact that these people aren't being fried means that either they know what they're doing (and I'm NOT going to post on here how it's done), or they're going after the lower voltage cables such as Signals & Telecoms - though these can still bite !

It's interesting that John_142 made a comment about inside jobs. You must remember that NR has sub-contracted work, and these sub-contractors sometimes sub-contract further. I doubt seriously that any permanent NR staff would be involved, but alot of people now work on the Railway on an almost casual basis for a pittance, so it's not beyoynd the realm of possibilty that some occasional worker who possesses a Hi-Vi, hat, & most importantly a bit of knowledge has 'cased the joint' and fancies a bit of extra-curricular income. Just a thought.

Foggy

Thats what i was thinking !

Yet more reason for Network Rail to bring everything in-house if you ask me. BR had the right ideas in that respect.

Sub-contracting has done nobody any favours on any level, has it?

Thanks for the reply foggy, thats very enlightening.
By the way a friend of mine who works as a driver for EMT says a lot of these lineside workers remind him of nightclub bouncers. Real bruisers as he called them.
Paul.

Nothing wrong in employing sub contractors providing the employing company checks the work is being done correctly as they should even if it is being done by 'in-house' labour. If the work is not done satisfactorily then get rid of the sub contractor and employ another who does do the work properly on the other hand try getting rid of poor work people from an in-house department especially from state organisations who seem to get promoted if they create more problems than they 'inherited' from others.
John.

Metal theft seems to be the 'in' thing amongst the criminal fraternity at the moment. A colleague at work was one of over thirty people in Hull who have had their brass doorknobs stolen in the last week!

It's far easier to monitor and manage an in-house team than it is to subcontract (which with Network Rail is even leading to sub-contracted sub-contracted workers) which makes it almost impossible to tell if the front line work force are cutting corners and so on and so forth.

Plus ultimately working in-house has cost benefits in the long run.

In-house staff answer to the top brass, if they fail in their jobs then they loose them, it's as simple as that. Sub-contracted workers can just move to the next contract, they don't worry (as much) about any repercusions.

I'm not saying it's entirely a bad thing. I just think Network Rail are benefiting from moving in-house and will continue to do so.

If you look into the subject of Track Workers it's quite a tricky one. Just last Christmas there was an uproar (not that that's anything new) about the substantial overruns of engineering work. Subsequent investigations showed that a significant number of people who were expected to form the track gangs just didn't show up, causing the carefully scheduled work to fall behind.

Given that the pay is relatively poor, the work hard, and it's the Xmas holidays...it's hardly surprising that a worker forsakes the offer he's had from NR and goes off to get better money on the door of the Blue Oyster Club - he won't break into a sweat and he might even 'pull'. That's the danger of casual labour - Casual is what you get !

I would imagine that the cost would be prohibitive of having an in-house workforce that was big enough to cover all the engineering projects (which always happen simultaneously during holidays).

I agree that there would be great benefits - When possessions aren't required these people could form track gangs and be responsible for their own stretch of track. Test Trains like the Yellow Banana check many criteria of the ride, but they don't check the Pandrol clips and they can't beat the Mark 1 eyeball.

Good point Foggy. If you are able to plan a steady work programme for years in advance you can keep permanent staff contiuously busy. But if it is boom and bust, with the public demanding that work is frantically crammed into short periods, or the Govt suddenly give the railways more money, or takes it away, then you end up having to use temporary labour from sub-contractors.

So basically what you are saying gentlemen is that the old system when the railways were nationalised was a much better system. Am I rught in assuming that?
If that is the case, then it is as every other aspect of life now, we are cutting corners for short term gain. If that is the case we all know how quickly it will go down the pan dont we.
Paul.

Ok well leading on from that, here's a challenge for everyone on a wet Saturday.....Can you name just ONE privatised industry where the customers actually received a better or cheaper service as a result of it being split up. ??

And a Brucey bonus to anyone who can name an organisation which took onto its Board of Governors any Civil Servants or Politicians who just happened to have been involved in that industry's break up !


Answers on a five pound note please ;)

You have hit the nail on the head there Paul, "short term gain" the big boys fill their accounts and then do a quick exit, unfortunately that is the name of the game these days. All the best.

British Telcom or rather "Post Office Telephones", would still be stuck in the 1960's if it hadn't been privatised. But it could still be better and cheeper yet.