Tough measures urged to tackle cable theft disruption on railways

Stagecoach also called on Ministers to introduce new rules to clamp down on unscrupulous scrap metal merchants as part of a package of measures to target thieves bringing misery to rail travellers.

Three separate incidents of signalling cable theft last week caused travel chaos as services were disrupted in and out of London Paddington and London Bridge and in Sussex.

In June, cable thieves disabled the signalling system near Woking in Surrey, causing massive disruption for around 80,000 South West Trains’ passengers.

Stagecoach chief executive Sir Brian Souter said: “The organised theft of metals is having a huge impact on the rail industry and its passengers, as well as on other critical aspects of the national infrastructure.

“Many rail customers know from bitter personal experience the terrible affect this can have on their daily lives. In June, thousands of our own passengers were severely delayed by a major cable theft incident. As well as the human cost of disruption, criminal activity in this area is now so damaging to our wider economy that we simply must act.”

Cable theft on the rail network grew by around a third between 2008/9 and 2010/11 and the estimated annual cost to the UK economy of metal theft is about £770m.

Transport Minister Norman Baker said: “Thefts like this cause misery for thousands of commuters and cause damage to the economy out of all proportion to the value of the cable itself. That is why I have recently met with both the British Transport Police and Network Rail to discuss what more can be done to tackle this problem and why I will shortly be discussing the issue with Ministers from other Departments.”