Rail passengers are reaping some great benefits of years of labor to tackle the problem of metal theft at the railway. Network Rail was working with partners within the railway and from other essential infrastructure industries to tackle this crime which, at its peak, caused greater than 6,000 hours worth of delays to trains in one year. As a consequence of these efforts, delay was down a combined 2,700 hours in 2012/13.
Across the North West and West Midlands, the full choice of cable theft incidents fell substantially by 36%, from 150 to 96 in the course of the same period.
In 2010/11 the year within which the best variety of incidents were recorded the figure for the North West and West Midlands reached 196.
Neil Henry, head of operations and function at Network Rail, said: “These figures show the genuine success of partnership working and are great news for passengers and our freight customers.
“The improvements we’ve seen are all the way down to a couple of factors, including British Transport Police targeting thieves and the scrap dealers buying stolen metal. Our engineers are working with suppliers and other industries to make metal – particularly our cables – harder to steal and easier to spot and our teams round the network introducing new ways of working to lessen delay and attach thefts more quickly. We believe the introduction of latest laws following our work with other industries to elucidate the necessity for change to government will continue to assist to stifle the marketplace for stolen metal.
“I wish to thank everyone who have been thinking about securing this success, including members of the general public who’ve reported suspicious behaviour to police. We aren’t complacent that this issue is solved and we’ll continue to work to further reduce cost and delay due to thieves on our railway.”
Rail Minister Norman Baker said: “The coalition Government is strongly committed to tackling metal theft and it’s heartening to determine that the decisive action that have been taken is now paying off with major reductions on this sort of crime. Government intervention during this area has included £5m of funding for a role force to crackdown on metal and cable thieves along side the introduction of a ban on cash payments by scrap metal dealers, significantly increasing the fines for all offences under the present Scrap Metal Dealers Act and providing law enforcement officials with sufficient powers of entry to tackle illegal trading in metal yards.”
Speaking in regards to the figures released today, Detective Chief Inspector Gill Murray, of British Transport Police, said: “The significant reductions prior to now 365 days are encouraging and are testament to the work done by police and partner agencies to extend the danger of detection and prosecution to offenders, whilst also reducing the aptitude rewards for his or her criminal behaviour.
“We cannot, however, take our eye off the ball and may continue to develop initiatives and tactics to make life much more challenging for thieves and unscrupulous metal recyclers.
“Tackling metal theft in an efficient manner is now embedded across police forces and within several industries and, with new legislation as a result of come into force later this year, there may be surely that the united kingdom remains committed to tackling against the law which strikes on the very heart of its infrastructure.”
Gary Cooper, director of operations and engineering on the Association of Train Operating Companies, added: “Rail users are commencing to enjoy the industry’s joint and determined crackdown on cable theft. The Scrap Metal Dealers Act is now law, that is excellent progress within the fight against cable thieves, whose actions may cause disruption for thousands of our customers.
“The new law may also help break the trade in stolen metal, however the industry and police must continue to interact to make metal harder to steal and sell on. Train companies are committed to doing all they may to attenuate disruption and fees even further.”
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