ROXBURY TOWNSHIP, N.J. — An NJ Transit mechanical employee has been arrested and charged with stealing 32 locomotive horns, the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General has announced.
In a press release, the Office of Inspector General said Jeremy Hayes was charged on Oct. 17 in Roxbury Township Municipal Court with having stolen, transported, and stored the horns from companies including Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation. The arrest and charges came after an investigation involving the DOT Office of Inspector General, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and NS, CSX, and NJ Transit police.
An NJ Transit spokesman told NJ.com that Hayes, an NJ Transit employee since 2019, has been suspended. None of the horns were stolen from NJ Transit. Railroad horns can cost $2,000 to $2,200, the news site reports.
Back in the 90s, and beyond to my 2010 retirement, I/we had a lot of integral, (as opposed to cable connected, under seat, remote control), cigarbox sized, 32 channel programmable, analog Motorola Maxtrac 160 Mhz FM VHF radios, stolen from various track machine tie tampers, ballast regulators, and others, that were left parked in passing sidings along the UPRR Sunset region mainline along the I10 corridor in AZ and NM.
So I had a local metal working machine shop fabricate some stainless steel, omega shaped 14 or 16 gauge sheet metal that would straddle those VHF radios at the side hinges in such a way that it would take two people to (un)nut ‘n bolt the radio, and the machine operator was always glad to help me apply those nut’s and bolts as I couldn’t reach them. It seemed to work well, and those SS omega sheet metal protectors also fit around the newly acquired, same dimension, Kenworth, DM, VHF radios.
Probably out and about with his work gear on. No one questioned him.
There is money to made. I hired on in 1976 and there were horn thefts for the 30+ years I worked. All the units of Class 1’s that are in storage are an easy target.
But how did he steal them if he wasn’t an employee of NS or CSX?
Here is a question that needs to be answered!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
He is an NJ Transit mechanical employee. He had the tools and the know-how. All he had to do was drive to the NS or CSX Engine, unbolt the horn, and take it home. He might have used his NJT truck.
It must have been expensive for NS and CSX. Lack of a horn horn takes the engine out of service and probably isn’t discovered until the crew gets it ready for the next day’s service. Now you’ve got an engine that can’t run, a crew that can’t work and traffic that can’t be moved (there are still railroaders that care about that)
Now you need the trouble truck with a new horn and tools to make the change, $2200 for the horn itself is the cheap part.
This guy must really have liked locomotive horns (!)
You’re darn tootin. 🙂