The Home Machinist!

This video popped up on my Youtube feed the other day. It was posted about 4 days ago. I can't even imagine the feeling these guys felt when engines they had spent years and years building were stolen. Makes me sick to my stomach. This is sort of similar to the thread below about the theft in Seattle.

Makes you wonder if this is becoming a more common occurrence. I wonder if it's just junkies stealing engines for drug money or if it's people who are aware of the hobby and selling these engines on the black market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWCUXoNZYio

Maybe they knew the stuff was there and maybe it was just a secluded opportunity and they expected power tools. A thief is a thief.

With them being so specialized and unique, and thus being so hard to unload for cash to someone, It's quite possible they will end up at the bottom of the river somewhere. I think that happened to a locomotive down in Australia a few years ago. They stole it, cut the copper boiler off of it and all the copper tubing off it, and then dumped the chassis in a local lake. It was discovered when they lowered the water to winter pool. I also remember that Ken Shattock said that someone broke into their basement and stole the 1/2" scale 0-6-0 steamer that his grandfather had built. Said it was never seen again. Rumor was that some local teens had stolen it and then got afraid they were going to get caught with it, and then dumped it in the SF bay.

Sad and angering what some non-thinking fool will do to something that someone spent so much time and money building. Most likely people were stealing to support their drug habit. Have seen people destroy a 5000 dollar item to get $100 worth of scrap metal out of it, which they will then buy drugs with.

Points out that locks alone won't save you. Cameras and motion detectors feeding a solid alarm system are what's needed. This took awhile and it looks like they had plenty of time to pull it off. Alarm response would have saved them.