Believe it or not information revealed to the Liberal Democrats shows that thieves have been responsible for thousands of trains being delayed over the past three years.
Since 2006, passengers have been forced to endure one million minutes of delays caused by organised gangs stealing copper cabling from the rail network.
In recent years the price of scrap metal as ‘shot through the roof’, but in particular copper and this has now become a valuable commodity to thieves across the UK.
Network Rail has reported more than 2,000 cases of cable theft, costing £25million in compensation payments to affected train operators.
The compensation from Network Rail to train operators means millions of pounds have to be diverted from investment in the railways – and could even lead to fare rises in the future.
Liberal Democrat Transport Secretary, Norman Baker who uncovered the figures, said: “This is a very serious issue for the railways which costs the public purse a lot of money as well as disrupting services for thousands of passengers.”
Copper cabling is vital to the rail network because it conducts the electricity on which trains run.
Network Rail is now tackling the problem by gradually replacing its copper cabling with aluminium, which is worth less.
Glyn Hellam, a spokesman for the British Transport Police, said: “We have a national operation to deal with cable and metal theft across the railway.”
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