Local Metals Thefts Cause Travel Misery
The route between Colchester and Chelmsford became ghost town due to a signalling problem caused by metal thieves on one of the busiest commuter routes into London.
“People who do it are risking their lives,” said a spokesman for the infrastructure company Network Rail, who stressed the safety of passengers was not at risk because a fail-safe system automatically turned signals to red.
“We are working very closely with the British Transport police to combat this. There are a lot of unscrupulous metal merchants who sell [wire] on, often to China, we believe. We are stepping up security across the network.”
“Two helicopters were employed to check for suspicious activity, and newly laid wire was being distinctively branded” the spokesman said. In addition, aluminium was increasingly being used instead of copper, which fetches higher scrap prices.
“We have 20,000 miles of track and you cannot have guards everywhere. We do what we can and we have had some success,” the spokesman said.
