BART police are searching for brazen bandits whose quest for copper has led them to cut cables from the trackway, sometimes during operating hours - a practice that could endanger both the thieves and train riders.
Such thefts, which have become common problems for transit agencies in the Bay Area and around the country, have forced BART to delay some maintenance projects.
The costly trend was underscored on Sunday morning when a BART driver looked out the window of his moving train and spotted a man on the tracks.
The driver shouted at the man and then called police, but the suspect was gone when officers arrived. He left behind damaged equipment, according to officials, who declined to give the precise location of the incident or say whether the tracks were elevated or fenced.
A police spokeswoman, Officer Era Jenkins, said that two days before that incident a BART officer was driving his squad car through a station lot just before 2 a.m. when he noticed a suspicious pickup truck parked nearby and wondered if it might be related to copper theft.
The officer found two people nearby and questioned them, but they denied any connection with the truck and left. Finding that the truck's registration was expired, Jenkins said, the officer called a tow truck, then left the tow truck driver to do his job.
Somehow, though, the pickup was "stolen off the back of the tow truck," Jenkins said. She declined to name the station where the theft occurred, but said BART knows the identity of the people who were questioned.
Jim Allison, a BART spokesman, said most of the copper thefts have occurred after trains shut down for the night, and have not prompted delays for riders. Thieves slice away thick "negative return" cables, which complete an electrical circuit by returning power to a substation.
Allison said workers have been on alert for the damage left behind by thefts that "create a dangerous situation, because the current is now going into the earth or along the rails, and creates a fire hazard."
Thieves have also gone after copper that is part of the train-control circuitry, Allison said, opening up the possibility for delays. The BART control center could experience a "false occupancy," he said, with the system showing a train that isn't actually running.
As for the bandits, Allison said, "Obviously it's a dangerous environment. You have a third rail that's possibly energized with 1,000 volts, and trains that operate at speeds up to 80 mph. ... We need to make sure we catch these criminals before somebody gets hurt or it does cause delays."
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