[DSY011]

Years ago when I was still a snooty nosed young teenager, my father was the CID officer for the Rhodesia Railways Police. Some trucks of copper bars went missing from the railways and he was asked to look into it. One Friday afternoon my dad was standing on the Ndola platform in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) when a train load off copper bars arrived in the yard from the copper refinery just outside of Ndola. The next thing that happened was the wagons were shunted to form up a train to head south and on to the ports for export.
My father was already working on another case not related and he headed over to the goods shed to talk to the goods clerk. It was while he was in the goods shed that he noticed some lorries reversing up a ramp and tipping scrap iron into a wagon. To him something was wrong.
That when he remembered. He had seen that wagon earlier. It was on the copper train that had arrived from the refinery. Dad knew when the copper train was due to leave and so he arranged to have the load checked just before it was due to depart, and after the shunt and loco crew had clocked off.
Five trucks were found to have scrapped metal dumped on top of the copper bars, and all the wagons being old also had ticket stating that they were scrap. Railway police all along the route were asked to report the progress of the wagons, right down to the port in Portuguese East Africa. The wagons were stopped from being loaded onto the ship. And the wagons and copper were recovered. Two footplate men and the whole shunt crew plus some port workers were arrested, charged and did time. The scrap merchant in the Far East was also charged in his own country and served time. All in all 16 wagons had already been turned into scrap steel for the manufacture of cars. After this, new and stringent checks were made on the movement of all wagons. As for my dad, well he said it was just part of the job, but he did not turn down the promotion.