Cable Theft

[umontu]

Couldn't see this already so delete if it's been posted already, please.

Camera's to stop cable thieves?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13338881

Let's hope it stops them.

 

[TackerUK]

Yep and now the cable thieves will know there maybe cameras around and wear a mask :roll:

 

[umontu]

Yep and now the cable thieves will know there maybe cameras around and wear a mask :roll:

To be fair they probably suspected that before hand.

 

[j0hn0]

Just replace the word camera with gun!

I hate cable thieves and they must be shot, no questions asked, no due process, just a nice spas unloaded in their face.

Stealing from railways puts far too many lives at risk for me to be any more lenient.

 

[Sapphire Blue]

Yep and now the cable thieves will know there maybe cameras around and wear a mask :roll:

. . . . . and nick the cameras!

 

[PaulLothian]

I used to be fascinated by a station I occasionally passed through in Lanarkshire which had platform CCTV cameras which were themselves watched by an adjacent camera...

 

[WatcherZero]

Of course, if theres no overlap in video camera coverage then theirs blindspots that could be exploited.

 

[Domeyhead]

Cameras are not high tech! I bumped into an old mate who is a consultant to NR, and he was telling me about a very new piece of technology developed as a military application in Afghanistan where a semi- passive fibre optic cable is laid. Apparently FO receivers are so sensitive now that they immediately detect nearby movement or vibration as interference to the base signal and can very quickly be "taught" patterns that equate to the mass/weight/speed of a nearby human. What is more impressive is that due to sub-nanosecond time measurement the receiver can also tell within a few metres where along the cable the interference is occurring. The clever part is the base protocol in which the interference occurs - it has to be able to show where and when the interference is occurring - probably through some kind of packet sequencing.
If the single listener cable is bundled in with all the copper or comms cabling it is going to get cut bythe thieves - but not until after it has sent an alarm to the signalling centre alerting exactly where the intrusion is occurring. The passive f.o. cable can be many miles long between booster/repeaters so it could be a very high tech solution to this problem - and far cheaper than having your cameras nicked by the thieves as well.

 

[Yew]

Of course, if theres no overlap in video camera coverage then theirs blindspots that could be exploited.

Yeah, the camera at worksop station is terrible.

Maybe give guards shotguns?

 

[chris89]

Saw that earlier. Should use smart water type 'cannon' things that are starting to be used at Sub-stations for electric.

Also any scrap merchant that is offered and refuses to buy and fails to report it to the police should be fined and ones who do buy it should be fined and jailed and so should the low lifes who steal the cabling.

On a different note in my area of shropshire we keep having scum completely removing drain covers.

Chris

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I saw this on the news this morning. I liked the mention of the motion sensors that were used to activate the CCTV. Could these sensors not also activate a system at the monitoring control which would notify the police, as some commercial systems do.

 

[brianthegiant]

What is more impressive is that due to sub-nanosecond time measurement the receiver can also tell within a few metres where along the cable the interference is occurring.

yep, same principle used in 'Reflectometers' used by engineers to find cable breaks, popular with BT. accuracy isn't great +/- 5% due to signal noise etc, I seem to recall, but good enough. All you need on railways is a simplified reflectometer circuit, connected to an telephone autodialler circuit, would be a self contained unit, which could be fixed to telecom racks & connected to a spare pair of wires. would call control room & give break location. Accuracy is improved if you do this from both ends of different pairs. hopefully NR are already onto this & specifying in all new telecoms & signals lineside cabs...?

 

[T163R]

Cable theft is unfortunately becoming current again, in France too.

Here, there are now helicopters (with embarked high technology such as super-powerful thermic cameras...) searching for thieves.

SNCF is still looking for solutions against cable thieves, such as:
-SmartWater, an invisible liquid that becomes fluorescent under a UV light
-GSM-GPS IC inside the cables and alarms that go on when a cable is cut.

 

[GB]

I saw this on the news this morning. I liked the mention of the motion sensors that were used to activate the CCTV. Could these sensors not also activate a system at the monitoring control which would notify the police, as some commercial systems do.

There are similar systems already in place on the railway by way of tremble alarms.

 

[jopsuk]

Network Rail already have an inspection helicopter (or, at least, did?) though I'm not sure if they use it for crime-detection, that may be left to using the regional police choppers.
A lot of the cable is marked up with smartwater or something similar, and scrap dealers are swooped on to check for marked cable- legit dealers will know to check for it and report any attempts to offload stolen cable but sadly scrap yards are a business sector that often skirts along the bounds of legality.

 

[Hydro]

NR still have the helicopter. It's used for a few things, it had a lot of time in the air during the snowfall in Scotland route checking. It also does aerial surveys of routes, and I believe it's been fitted with thermal imaging cameras for overhead surveys of electrification. I don't know if it's been out on a cable theft hotspot job but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Aictos]

Cameras are not high tech! I bumped into an old mate who is a consultant to NR, and he was telling me about a very new piece of technology developed as a military application in Afghanistan where a semi- passive fibre optic cable is laid. Apparently FO receivers are so sensitive now that they immediately detect nearby movement or vibration as interference to the base signal and can very quickly be "taught" patterns that equate to the mass/weight/speed of a nearby human. What is more impressive is that due to sub-nanosecond time measurement the receiver can also tell within a few metres where along the cable the interference is occurring. The clever part is the base protocol in which the interference occurs - it has to be able to show where and when the interference is occurring - probably through some kind of packet sequencing.
If the single listener cable is bundled in with all the copper or comms cabling it is going to get cut bythe thieves - but not until after it has sent an alarm to the signalling centre alerting exactly where the intrusion is occurring. The passive f.o. cable can be many miles long between booster/repeaters so it could be a very high tech solution to this problem - and far cheaper than having your cameras nicked by the thieves as well.

This I do like, which is much better then having CCTV as you cannot have CCTV covering every part of the UK's railways as the copper fairies would just go to areas which don't have CCTV coverage.

 

[umontu]

NR still have the helicopter. It's used for a few things, it had a lot of time in the air during the snowfall in Scotland route checking. It also does aerial surveys of routes, and I believe it's been fitted with thermal imaging cameras for overhead surveys of electrification. I don't know if it's been out on a cable theft hotspot job but it wouldn't surprise me.

Its all well and good them having a helicopter but take locations like Salwick station, it's in a restricted zone. I'd have to look it up but it's something like 2,000 feet. There must be 100+ locations that are in restricted airspace. Though admittedly they may get to break some of those rules like the police and air ambulance do.

 

[DarloRich]

Saw that earlier. Should use smart water type 'cannon' things that are starting to be used at Sub-stations for electric.

Also any scrap merchant that is offered and refuses to buy and fails to report it to the police should be fined and ones who do buy it should be fined and jailed and so should the low lifes who steal the cabling.

On a different note in my area of shropshire we keep having scum completely removing drain covers.

Chris

The slight problem with that is that it would be a pretty stupid scrappy who left a plie of dodgy/hot rail lying around! Just buy it cheaper, smelt it quickly and sell it on. No one will ever know!


plus it is not just some bunch of pikeys nicking this stuff now but serious, organised criminals! they will know how to defeat the system. All you will stop is the gypo idiots NOT the big gangs who cause most of the real damage

 

[ralphchadkirk]

All you will stop is the gypo idiots NOT the big gangs who cause most of the real damage

You've just managed to loose all credibility with that statement, as well as insulting a nice, kind, hard-working community.

 

[Hydro]

There must be 100+ locations that are in restricted airspace

...out of thousands of other locations and thousands of route miles that NR are also responsible for.

 

[umontu]

...out of thousands of other locations and thousands of route miles that NR are also responsible for.

Should have added "at least" I know.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It is nothing to do with the inflated prices being paid for copper and other valuable metals. Theft of this type has been a problem for countless years. Whatever we think, there will always be opportunistic thieves...and unscrupulous dealers to take advantage of them....FACT OF LIFE

With these dealers, there is no concience as to the effects of the theft and how it affects not only the operational needs of the rail services, but also of the safety of the travelling public. Whilst there may be some financial gain for the thieves, it will not compare to the size of the profits that the rogue dealers will make.

Mind you, the same applies to the drug dealers in Britain.

 

[Domeyhead]

Everyone here is making the case for fibreoptic proximity and location sensing threads look ever more attractive. Cameras and motion sensors are fixed, helicopters advertise their presense in advance, the plod are too few and offer patchy coverage of one location at any time. The case for hundreds of miles of F.O. proximity detection no thicker than a human hair and bundled in with existing signal cables as a 24x7 watchdog is starting to look more compelling. You can't stop cables being cut but if you get an alarm going even before it happens you can get someone to intercept them before they leave the crime scene. That's is what the helicopter should be used for, not fly and hope patrolling.
Remember how radar started........

 

[2Dogbox]

Any cable thief that is caught should not go to prison!!!!!

No, they should instead be placed in medieval style stocks on the nearest large station and have rotten fruit thrown at them by the passengers that they have caused misery to in the first place.

These people are a disgrace. I been the guard on several of trains affected by cable theft. And have seen passengers miss hospital appointments, planes and had ruined days due to these parasites. But I guess there is no compassion in these people and no-one else comes above their own greed. Rant over!

 

[Cherry_Picker]

I have often wondered how many cable thieves are ex P-Way blokes using a bit of inside knowledge.

 

[BestWestern]

^^ That is an interesting thought, has to be a possibility I suppose? :cry: I took some comfort from a recent front page article in Rail News, which mentioned that there have been a few cases of the theiving scum being badly burned or injured in the process of causing chaos... What a terrible shame

 

[brianthegiant]

A lot of the cable is marked up with smartwater or something similar,

not totally convinced about the smartwater approach since non-legit scrap collectors burn the pvc sheathing off copper cables anyway, not sure how much of the smartwater would be left after the copper comes out of the fire.

scrap metal ought to be more regulated imho, we get a different tranny van every day cruising for scrap, they just grab anything metal without asking.

 

[Donny Dave]

plus it is not just some bunch of pikeys nicking this stuff now but serious, organised criminals!

Wasn't there such a gang in the West Yorkshire area in the last couple of years or so?

They got a van, painted it into NR colours, and armed with nothing more than fake requisition orders, liberally helped themselves to various metals at numerous NR depots for several weeks ....

 

[DarloRich]

Wasn't there such a gang in the West Yorkshire area in the last couple of years or so?

They got a van, painted it into NR colours, and armed with nothing more than fake requisition orders, liberally helped themselves to various metals at numerous NR depots for several weeks ....

they are not the only ones! People have been arrested in NR high viz with all the correct forms and permits to collect things - only problem being it was all forged or stolen! Now I wonder where all that came from?