"Train strikes car; 2 injured, 1 charged" (Saugeries, NY)

[RR_Security]

Saugerties.jpg
As soon as I saw the photo, I thought "I'll bet this didn't take place anywhere near a public grade crossing." Sure enough:

Dawn M. Wager, 32, of Kingston; Patrick T. Mascalino, 32, of Kingston; and Lawrence T. Williams, 57, of Kingston, were allegedly parked Saturday alongside Kohler Road, an access road to CSX railroad tracks. While there, they were removing metal plates from the tracks, said police, which is illegal. That's when a train approached.

Upon attempting to leave in their car, they were struck by the passing train. The train hit the car's rear driver side area, causing the vehicle to rollover.

<http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbc...NEWS/140909804>

Mess around too close to the bandstand, and you might get hit with more than just a horn. fail.gif

[Inactive]

Too ripe- stealing scrap and their vehicle gets smashed into scrap by accident LOL.
Let's see someone tell us to our faces that the scrap yard who would have bought those plates had no idea they were stolen!
Couple of greasers drive up in a pickup full of railroad plates, gee, I guess these dudes must own the railroad and were juts cleaning out the storage shed huh?

[CCCSD]

Racist train.

[JustAJ]

Racist train.

That "came out of nowhere" ...

[VA Dutch]

Saugerties, NY is close to where the Woodstock festival was all those years ago.

[VA Dutch]

By the way, what kind of 'steel plates' were they removing from the tracks? I suppose it was to be sold as 'scrap metal' - possibly to subsidize a drug habit of some kind. However, is it not a safety hazard of some type to REMOVE such things from railroad tracks?

Trespassing and petit larceny? Wow....they would be getting off quite easy if those were the only charges. I doubt the same mercy would be shown to someone illegally removing landing lights from an airport runway.

[RR_Security]

Too ripe- stealing scrap and their vehicle gets smashed into scrap by accident LOL.

Kinda karmic, ain't it?

Let's see someone tell us to our faces that the scrap yard who would have bought those plates had no idea they were stolen!
Couple of greasers drive up in a pickup full of railroad plates, gee, I guess these dudes must own the railroad and were juts cleaning out the storage shed huh?

Tie plates and joint bars are relatively small, and when well mixed with a load of other scrap, can be hard to spot. Hell, about four years ago, somebody left a load that included storm grates and manhole covers at a recycler in Portland. The stolen stuff was at the bottom of the pile, but as soon as the scrapyard employees spotted something they knew shouldn't have been there, they called the police.
One of the scrapyards near here is so cautious, they wouldn't accept a load from two of my company's guys in a company truck, unless our guys brought a letter authorizing the sale of the stuff. But all it takes is one place that doesn't ask any questions, and stolen material will tend to gravitate there. It's like some weird magnetic force that draws even copper and aluminum, y'know?

Some of the OTM (other track materials) can look like just "generic plates" unless the recycling employees really know what it is. Chief Greiner at the Morristown & Erie Rwy. in NJ made up a booklet showing what the various pieces-parts are, and gave copies to the recyclers in that area. Some things like aluminum poles can be hard to ID if the thieves go through the effort of cutting it up, and smaller chunks of anything are usually worth more. Some thieves will put more work (and acetylene) into cutting up stolen property than they will into doing/making anything worthwhile.

Some months back, maybe last year, I saw a Scrap Theft Alert about some guy with a load of rail in the back of a ratty F150 pickup. I think one recycler turned him away after getting the plate number on the truck, and they reported it to the railroad police, who put out the STA. I forgot where that was; dunno if they eventually caught up to him and found out where it all came from.

I just checked the price of "Sorted Railroad Scrap" (OTM). It went up somewhat during August, but was still below 13¢/lb. for anything less than 40,000 lbs. I guess that wasn't too profitable for the owner of that vehicle.

[RR_Security]

By the way, what kind of 'steel plates' were they removing from the tracks? I suppose it was to be sold as 'scrap metal' - possibly to subsidize a drug habit of some kind. However, is it not a safety hazard of some type to REMOVE such things from railroad tracks

My best guess would be tie plates. Those get spiked to the wooden ties (concrete or steel ties use different methods), and have shoulders that keep the rails "in gauge." (56½" apart.) Those and joint bars (for bolting lengths of rail together) are often targets for thieves.
The image isn't to scale, but the tie plates (left) are upwards of 15 lbs. each, and a joint bar like the one on the right of the image would be about 35 lbs.
railroad-track-car-crane_r2_c3.jpg
Usually they swipe them from storage areas, but I've known of a couple of cases in Maine where somebody was pulling spikes out of tie plates or had unbolted joint bars on inactive (but not abandoned) lines. I believe it was 2009 when somebody cut at least one length of rail from a siding on one of those routes, using an oxy-acetylene torch. I think those thieves got busted after they were caught while helping themselves to a radio tower that one of the local fire departments had recently replaced with a new tower.

Trespassing and petit larceny? Wow....they would be getting off quite easy if those were the only charges. I doubt the same mercy would be shown to someone illegally removing landing lights from an airport runway.

Yeah, I heard of some mopes in NJ who got caught taking down signal cables on a railroad line a few years ago. I don't know if they were actually hit with terrorism charges, but the possibility was brought up at least once.

Dopers don't have good reasoning abilities.

[RR_Security]

Too ripe- stealing scrap and their vehicle gets smashed into scrap by accident LOL.

Kinda karmic, ain't it?

Let's see someone tell us to our faces that the scrap yard who would have bought those plates had no idea they were stolen!
Couple of greasers drive up in a pickup full of railroad plates, gee, I guess these dudes must own the railroad and were juts cleaning out the storage shed huh?

Tie plates and joint bars are relatively small, and when well mixed with a load of other scrap, can be hard to spot. Hell, about four years ago, somebody left a load that included storm grates and manhole covers at a recycler in Portland. The stolen stuff was at the bottom of the pile, but as soon as the scrapyard employees spotted something they knew shouldn't have been there, they called the police.
One of the scrapyards near here is so cautious, they wouldn't accept a load from two of my company's guys in a company truck, unless our guys brought a letter authorizing the sale of the stuff. But all it takes is one place that doesn't ask any questions, and stolen material will tend to gravitate there. It's like some weird magnetic force that draws even copper and aluminum, y'know?

Some of the OTM (other track materials) can look like just "generic plates" unless the recycling employees really know what it is. Chief Greiner at the Morristown & Erie Rwy. in NJ made up a booklet showing what the various pieces-parts are, and gave copies to the recyclers in that area. Some things like aluminum poles can be hard to ID if the thieves go through the effort of cutting it up, and smaller chunks of anything are usually worth more. Some thieves will put more work (and acetylene) into cutting up stolen property than they will into doing/making anything worthwhile.

Some months back, maybe last year, I saw a Scrap Theft Alert about some guy with a load of rail in the back of a ratty F150 pickup. I think one recycler turned him away after getting the plate number on the truck, and they reported it to the railroad police, who put out the STA. I forgot where that was; dunno if they eventually caught up to him and found out where it all came from.

I just checked the price of "Sorted Railroad Scrap" (OTM). It went up somewhat during August, but was still below 13¢/lb. for anything less than 40,000 lbs. I guess that wasn't too profitable for the owner of that vehicle.

[Inactive]

That "came out of nowhere" ...

"Nowhere" is this big magical place similar to the Wizard of OZs' land!

[RR_Security]

But everybody's got to be somewhere, sometime.

[Inactive]

But everybody's got to be somewhere, sometime.

Well yes, and you know, that no matter where you are...

...there you are!