International Railroad Discussion > FCAB Chile fresh copper in glint light

West of Cumbre, Chile   April 2022



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/22 13:13 by masterphots.

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Nowadays a train with an expensive cargo like this sounds as a dream to thieves here in Brazil. If they steal cast iron that is less expendise, imagine what they can do for a copper?

Posted from Android

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

pedrop Wrote:
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> Nowadays a train with an expensive cargo like this
> sounds as a dream to thieves here in Brazil. If
> they steal cast iron that is less expendise,
> imagine what they can do for a copper?
>
> Posted from Android

Which is why those new racks,  given their huge weight,  are pretty much theftproof.  The flat cars are new too.

Can you post more pics of these new cars?

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

pedrop Wrote:
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> Can you post more pics of these new cars?

I did find a couple of more I shot of a different type:

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Here in the US, Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY used to take in silver ingots by rail (to make photographic film, remember that stuff?). I interviewed there in the late 1970s, and they told me their primary inventory security measure was that the ingots were so damn heavy that nobody could figure out how to steal them.

At that point, silver was running about $12 a Troy ounce.  A few years later, it was up in the $40s, not sure if they took additional measures at that point.  By then I was thousands of miles away, working for a mining company, trying to find more of the stuff.

Oh, and if you think you can just take a torch and hack off a piece of metal, both copper and silver have this tendency to heal the cut left behind by the torch as its passing through.  I never figured out if my interviewers were impressed with the security questions I asked, or put off by the notion that they might be hiring an imaginative thief.  Either way, I never got an offer.

march_hare Wrote:
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> Here in the US, Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY
> used to take in silver ingots by rail (to make
> photographic film, remember that stuff?). I
> interviewed there in the late 1970s, and they told
> me their primary inventory security measure was
> that the ingots were so damn heavy that nobody
> could figure out how to steal them.
>
> At that point, silver was running about $12 a Troy
> ounce.  A few years later, it was up in the $40s,
> not sure if they took additional measures at that
> point.  By then I was thousands of miles away,
> working for a mining company, trying to find more
> of the stuff.
>
> Oh, and if you think you can just take a torch and
> hack off a piece of metal, both copper and silver
> have this tendency to heal the cut left behind by
> the torch as its passing through.  I never
> figured out if my interviewers were impressed with
> the security questions I asked, or put off by the
> notion that they might be hiring an imaginative
> thief.  Either way, I never got an offer.

Great story.  What was happening here was thieves would hop a moving  FCAB train and throw off copper anodes which were simply stacked on open flat cars.   A following pick-up truck on an access road along the tracks would then pick them up, along with the guys on the train and off they'd go.  Nobody was hurt and the police chose not to pursue,  even when this sometimes happened alongside a toll highway.  Nobody seemed to try and trace who the buyers of the copper were either.  When copper was over $4.00/pound this happened a lot.  Today it's $3.38.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/22 16:57 by masterphots.