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Thieves in LA are looting freight trains filled with packages from UPS,FEDE,AMZ

43 points| neeleshs | 4 years ago |cnn.com | reply

10 comments

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[+] mc32|4 years ago|reply
If thievery keeps going up like this and law enforcement continues to take a kid gloves approach to this, there are two likely outcomes: the cost simply gets passed on to the consumer or we get a Pinkerton re-incarnation. This latter option is a phenomenon that already happens in developing countries where law enforcement ignores these kind of issues.
[+] pacificmint|4 years ago|reply
Years ago I would have thought the Pinkerton option unlikely, but between privatized prisons and military contractors, I do kind of wonder if we are far off from it.
[+] eli_gottlieb|4 years ago|reply
The original Pinkerton company still exists and operates private security services.
[+] joezydeco|4 years ago|reply
And now there's been a derail incident on that same stretch of track. Could have been caused by all the debris.

https://twitter.com/bellikemike/status/1482480779544256514

This account is the one that first posted video, check his other posts for more stuff.

[+] sschueller|4 years ago|reply
The YouTube channel "German in Venice" was there today and asked one of the train workers which told him the derailment was not caused by the trash.

Looking at another video on Twitter where the train is riding on both tracks it appears and railway switch failed halfway while the train was running over it. I saw this happen to a light rail here in Zürich during a very cold day, the railway switch snapped back in the middle of a railcar running over it. One track turned up another street so the railcar ripped apart at the flexible junction.

Of course a piece of trash could easily have caused the failure of the railway switch.

[+] throwaway0a5e|4 years ago|reply
It takes a lot of trash on the tracks to derail a train. Trains frequently just run over downed trees because clearing them would involve hours of waiting and it rarely does any damage of note. Maybe if the trash is scrap steel you might have a shot.

It's pretty likely that the derailment is a switching failure because the train is riding on two different tracks. If it was just dragging along on the ties and rail bed that would be more indicative of some other kind of derailment.