In late 2021 and early 2022, SCDigest ran several articles about growing cases of thieves breaking into train cars filled with ecommerce goods from the likes of Amazon as the locomotive pulling slowed or stopped coming into a station. After opening a container, the thieves helped themselves if they liked what they found inside. The result: large losses for shippers and giant piles of trash along the tracks as merchandise was ripped out of cartons, with the entire carton tossed if the thieves didn’t fancy the contents. (See Los Angeles Cargo Theft Story Gaining Momentum, with Increasing War of Words.)
Supply Chain Digest Says...
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The Times also notes train thieves sometimes go so far as to cut the air-compression brake hoses that run between train cars, causing the emergency braking system to turn on, stopping the train.
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Around that time, the New York Times reported that Union Pacific claimed that about 90 containers were being opened per day and that theft on their freight trains in the LA area was up some 160% from the previous year.
We hadn’t heard much on this topic since then and wondered if the problem had dissipated. It sounds like a bit in general, but not nationwide.
A recent article by Malia Wollan in the New York Times Magazine reported that since the thievery received widespread media coverage in 2021/22, “The boxes on the tracks were cleaned up. And for the most part the story went quiet.”
But that was a mirage.
The Times Magazine says the theft is as prevalent as ever and occurs in many locations often far from Los Angeles.
The Department of Homeland Security recently created a unit called Operation Boiling Point to go after organized theft groups, saying that cargo theft across all transport modes accounts for as much as $35 billion in annual losses.
But getting a grip on the scale is difficult to achieve.
“Essentially it’s impossible to get a clear picture of how much is purloined from the supply chain, who takes it or where it goes next,” the Times notes.
While a growing percent of cargo thefts appear to involve organized crime, even solo thieves can get pretty sophisticated. The Time learned about one arrested train thief in LA who “divulged how he learned to decode the containers stacked on freight trains through his repeated break-ins and by Googling the placards, locking devices, logos and numbers on the containers, which often provided clues to the loot he might find inside.”
Most desirable of course is high value merchandise and those with an easily accessible gray market to cash in on the loot.
The Times also notes train thieves sometimes go so far as to cut the air-compression brake hoses that run between train cars, causing the emergency braking system to turn on, stopping the train.
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When that happens, typically the engineer stays in the train cab while the conductor walks the length of the now stationary train, trying to determine which car was tampered with.
Source: CBS LA
With many trains miles long, that inspection is often a very slow one.
“In the meantime, the pilferers unload,” the Times says.
The Times article closes by noting all recent retail store thefts, often brazen and almost always captured on video, that are causing some retailers to close some outlets and increasing calls for more law and order.
The train thefts may be a lot more hidden than but are worth huge multiples of store thievery, the Times notes.
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