[Dan in Pasadena]

Jeff, I work on the Metro Light Rail projects, currently the Gold Line Eastside Extension project that isunder construction.

Years ago I was on the Metro Green Line when we were building it and we had begun stringing up the catenary line. That line is actually 5/8" solid copper and costs a fortune. One Monday morning our Systems contractor came to work to find that some of the future Supreme Court Justices and Nobel Laureates that live in Nickerson Gardens had gone on a spree over the weekend and cut down several THOUSAND feet of catenary with hacksaws (!!!). That was no easy task. After cutting it all down they needed a way to haul it so they stole a half ton truck. They had put all these lengths of solid copper into it and hadn't realized the weight would be SO heavy the damned truck wouldn't move. Kinda like that now infamous shot of the Jetta with stacks of plywood strapped to its roof and the suspension destroyed, if you remember it.

We found the truck, still reeking of burnt clutch and with the suspension bottomed out about a mile away from our work zone. Classic.

Oh and P.S. Some numbnuts in that crowd had the sense to know that catenary carries current ('ya think?!) so they got the bright idea to use long auto jumper cables to ground it and had driven a 2": wide steel construction stake into the ground and clammped the other end to it. Now, the system had not yet been energized at that time or the person that did the clamping would have been...well....simply GONE. It carries 750 volts DC and enough amperage to move multiple rail cars weighing tens of thousands of pounds. It would have been a classic Darwin Award winner but they lucked out!