Los Angeles freight theft photos: An on-the-ground look at cargo theft on the city’s railways

Union Pacific’s Los Angeles rail hub has been hit with $5 million worth of losses, claims, and damages. In one section of LA’s Lincoln Heights neighborhood, easy pedestrian access makes stopped trains easy targets for thieves.

FleetUp’s industry experts went to the scene to get a first-hand look at the impact of freight theft. This is what they found.

Union Pacific described the situation as “a spiraling crisis of organized and opportunistic criminal rail theft.”

On Saturday January 15th, the amount of discarded packages possibly caused 17 train cars to derail.

Union Pacific reports a 160% increase in thefts along LA Country tracks since December 2020.

Union Pacific has cleaned the tracks twice in the last 3 months, but debris continues to accumulate.

Tracks with the Downtown LA skyline in the background

Prevent freight theft with cutting edge cargo security

The first step to protecting cargo is real-time freight monitoring with advanced theft protection. These monitoring devices have three primary features. They can:

1. Be quickly and securely installed by non-experts
2. Update in real-time and lasts for over 3 months.
3. Send real-time text and email break-in alerts

The only freight monitoring provider that offers all three of these features if FleetUp.

In terms of installation, other trackers offer one of two bad choices. Some are simple to install but flimsily attached. Others are securely attached but complicated to install. Only FleetUp’s is simple to install securely. They’re so intuitive, even the least technically-minded employee can easily figure out installation.

Other trackers also offer bad choices when it comes to battery life. They force customers to pick either long-lasting batteries or real-time updates instead of offering both. Settling for once-a-day updates means that theft alerts can come as late as 24 hours after the robbery. Settling for quickly depleted batteries means that organizations lose time to charging and recharging devices.

In terms of break-in alerts, many freight monitoring providers make bold claims that they can’t back up. They advertise real-time theft alerts, but what they actually track are geofence alerts, which give constant false positives every time any asset leaves a lot. FleetUp offers the only anti-theft device that actually sends alerts the moment thieves attempt to break into containers.

Stop freight theft now

Freight theft is increasing but organizations outfitted with comprehensive anti-theft monitoring will be able to minimize losses. Respond to theft in real time with FleetUp.