UK cable theft

[John Ashworth]

For those South Africans who think cable theft is an exclusively South African problem, the following is an article from the UK Railway Magazine, September 2007, p76:

£5,000 reward to catch cable thieves

Network Rail is offering a £5,000 reward for information leading to convictions following the theft of 500 metres of signalling [cable] from Micklefield on July 9.

This cable has a high scrap value. More than 350 metres of fibre optic cable was stolen, which has no resale value but takes time to replace. Network Rail has said this one incident would cost around £75,000 to put right.

The theft of cables is becoming endemic in parts of the country, despite increased security patrols and the training of Network Rail staff in forensic techniques to improve conviction rates.

Often, the thieves lift a length of cable from its troughing, place it over the running rail, wait for a train to sever it and then make off with it before action can be taken.

Detective Chief Inspector Danny Snee, of the British Transport Police (BTP), said: "After the threat of terrorism, the theft of cable is one of our force's biggest challenges.

"This crime is costly to the rail industry and causes hours of delays to the thousands of passengers who rely on the rail network."

July 10 was dubbed European Day of Action on cable theft and BTP made a total of 11 arrests and recovered 25 tonnes of stolen cable, valued at £99,000.

Visits were made to 55 scrap dealers and 50 road vehicles were stopped.