Railroad thefts and guns: A deadly mix in Chicago

[Tanfodude]

Besides the train stored stolen guns, there were multiple gun store break in just last year alone in Indiana, where do you think those go to?

 

[bonkers1919]

The brakes on a train are applied by releasing air from the brake lines. If a connecting air hose between the rail cars is broken the air is released and the train comes to a stop.

I worked for CSX on the East coast for many years as a locomotive engineer. In New Jersey there is a hill where adults and kids wait for the train to roll by. They wait until the locomotive passes by and then roll car tires down the hill hoping one tire hits a brake line between rail cars. When their plan works the train stops and is raped of everything. I have sat for hours waiting for the car department and RR police to show up and clean the mess up.

By no means does a train need to be stopped to be robbed. In my rear view mirror I have seen people jump on trains at 10-15 miles an hour open shipping containers, and start throwing stuff out. it lays on the side of the tracks, they jump off and pick up what they stole.

Tropicana via CSX runs a 75 car unit train of orange and grapefruit juice everyday between Bradenton FLA. to Jersey City, New Jersey everyday. If Tropicana is not ready to receive the 75 new cars the RR tries to hold you in the yard. That is not always possible. So you pull to a stop signal 1\2 mile from the plant. The longer you are stopped, the more juice is stolen. Daytime or nighttime it doesn't matter you can watch the people steal the juice as you sit there and wait. It was pointless to make a radio call reporting what you were seeing. No one was coming to stop the thievery.

In 1999-2000, during the CSX, NS and Conrail breakup and merger RR crime in Philadelphia went thru the roof. Trains were stacked up everywhere and the tracks were littered with everything fro ATV's to toilet paper. Those were fun times. I saw a lot of crime during the merger.

 

[Tomc1947]

It's time for the City to outlaw trains that come thru Indiana.

 

[kscessnadriver]

So when you ship by " Ground " it really means ground?
I wonder if overnight Air means overnight Air?

It really depends on the shipping company. I flew small contract air freight for a UPS feeder (think small planes to cities UPS couldn't fill a jet to). With UPS, when the jet to Louisville goes out of the main city, they'll fill it up. If air shipments fill it up, that's it. But if there is room on the aircraft, they'll throw certain ground freight on the plane, in order to use all the volume of the aircraft. UPS operates as a single company, air or ground, it all gets delivered in the same brown truck. FedEx on the other hand, only puts air on the airplane, doesn't matter if there is empty room on it or not. FedEx has different delivery trucks for air and ground shipments, so it's possible to get delivery of a FedEx Air and Ground package on the same day and get 2 trucks to do it.

 

[BStarkey 46947]

I knew an engineer that worked for NS that carried a 1911 plus mags whenever he was on duty. Granted this was 30 years ago in the lat 80's. He told some good stories about people boarding/vandalizing/stealing from the trains.

 

[Thor]

It sounds like the trains need to employ a bunch of roof Koreans.

 

[ljk]

So when you ship by " Ground " it really means ground?
I wonder if overnight Air means overnight Air?

FedEx Ground used to be a complete different company from FedEx. We had 2 accounts one for air(express), another for ground. 2 different trucks come to our warehouse to pick up shipments and they go to different hubs.

FedEx bought out a whole bunch of smaller regional freight carriers to set up as FedEx Ground, about 12-15 years ago.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

It really depends on the shipping company. I flew small contract air freight for a UPS feeder (think small planes to cities UPS couldn't fill a jet to). With UPS, when the jet to Louisville goes out of the main city, they'll fill it up. If air shipments fill it up, that's it. But if there is room on the aircraft, they'll throw certain ground freight on the plane, in order to use all the volume of the aircraft. UPS operates as a single company, air or ground, it all gets delivered in the same brown truck. FedEx on the other hand, only puts air on the airplane, doesn't matter if there is empty room on it or not. FedEx has different delivery trucks for air and ground shipments, so it's possible to get delivery of a FedEx Air and Ground package on the same day and get 2 trucks to do it.

Thanks for the lesson, ks.

I find stuff like this fascinating.

 

[kscessnadriver]

Thanks for the lesson, ks.

I find stuff like this fascinating.

It's amazing how two companies that do the same thing operate so very differently. It's said all the time that UPS is a trucking company that happens to have some airplanes on the side and FedEx is an air cargo company that happens to have some trucks on the side.

 

[4651feeder]

It really depends on the shipping company. I flew small contract air freight for a UPS feeder (think small planes to cities UPS couldn't fill a jet to). With UPS, when the jet to Louisville goes out of the main city, they'll fill it up. If air shipments fill it up, that's it. But if there is room on the aircraft, they'll throw certain ground freight on the plane, in order to use all the volume of the aircraft. UPS operates as a single company, air or ground, it all gets delivered in the same brown truck. FedEx on the other hand, only puts air on the airplane, doesn't matter if there is empty room on it or not. FedEx has different delivery trucks for air and ground shipments, so it's possible to get delivery of a FedEx Air and Ground package on the same day and get 2 trucks to do it.

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here...but UPS does not operate as a single company; parcel which happens to handle air and ground are separate and apart from UPS Freight and Logistics. A UPS NDA package would co-mingle during sort with ground parcels while being unloaded from a pick-up vehicle and during loading to a vehicle for delivery; otherwise, they are in segregated sorts. To allude that UPS tops off their aircraft with ground parcels is somewhat misleading. My understanding was/is the only ground parcel(s) to make an aircraft load in or outbound from a spoke on the hub would be high value ground shipment which have received upgrade due to that. I can however see them exploiting contract flights with ground parcels to top load off maximizing their bang for the buck.

 

[kscessnadriver]

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here...but UPS does not operate as a single company; parcel which happens to handle air and ground are separate and apart from UPS Freight and Logistics. A UPS NDA package would co-mingle during sort with ground parcels while being unloaded from a pick-up vehicle and during loading to a vehicle for delivery; otherwise, they are in segregated sorts. To allude that UPS tops off their aircraft with ground parcels is somewhat misleading. My understanding was/is the only ground parcel(s) to make an aircraft load in or outbound from a spoke on the hub would be high value ground shipment which have received upgrade due to that. I can however see them exploiting contract flights with ground parcels to top load off maximizing their bang for the buck.

Fair enough, the average home consumer doesn't really give 2 dimes of an opinion about freight and logistics, just how quickly their Amazon package gets there...

 

[T.Lex]

Why does every INGO thread turn into a faculty lounge discussion?

 

[Fullmag]

Wife's family work for railroad so this adds more depth to the things I hear. Been there and seen that rail yard in Chicago it is incredibley huge. Hard to imagine how someone could target anything specifically. East meets west in Chicago and Kansas City those are the two places that have the large railroad hubs in the Midwest.

 

[pilotof727s]

I'm sure they will try to figure out how to blame Indiana for the surplus of guns.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

I'm sure they will try to figure out how to blame Indiana for the surplus of guns.

We've been returning fire on that for years: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...hicagos-gun-violence-isnt-indianas-fault-rahm

 

[Leadeye]

It has to be a inside job. There is no way you could find the one train car out of all those car.

Everything in chicago is an inside job.

 

[BIGE7.62]

I heard about gun thefts in Chicago rail yards 20 plus years ago . Nothing new

 

[Lex Concord]

Most UPS ground shipments between the west coast and the midwest move by train. CSX Avon Yard on the west side of Indianapolis sees some UPS trailers being loaded and unloaded, but there's a huge amount of UPS traffic through their hub and the big rail yards in the Chicago area. You can kinda see this if you track a shipment from the west coast. If there's a report from Los Angeles or Long Beach then the next report is Chicago 3-5 days later, that trailer probably moved by train. FedEx Ground, Schneider, and JB Hunt also move trailers by train as well as most of the stuff from Aisian importers.

If this was a UPS trailer that was hit, it would require very specific knowledge that a particular box from Ruger was on a particular trailer on a particular train. Or, it was just dumb luck that the thieves hit the jackpot.

Back in the 1970's, R.J. Reynolds used to ship trailer loads of cigarettes by train. The trailers would come up from Jeffersonville on one train and be switched onto another train headed for the east coast. The railroad police watched those trailers very carefully because the thieves knew the pattern of movements and would target the right trailers. But, that was a whole trailer of cigarettes, not one box in the mountain of boxes that are on a 45-foot trailer.

Agree with need for inside knowledge (though only very basic) for hitting a UPS trailer... if a parcel is flagged "high value", they are tail loaded and easy to identify. Loss prevention is usually waiting at the dock when the trailer is opened.

 

[Lex Concord]

So when you ship by " Ground " it really means ground?
I wonder if overnight Air means overnight Air?

Always overnight, but not necessarily air.

 

[lonehoosier]

Little more info.

Chicago's violent gangs looting freight cars filled with guns
Chicago's violent gangs looting freight cars filled with guns | Fox News