It's one of the reason trains get stuck in Europe: thieves stealing copper cables. They've been found to steal, too, heavy road grate if they were of any value: which created actual serious accidents (where a car's tire falls into the hole).
Regarding the electrical cables for trains, one solution is, slowly , replace them with cables with basically the same properties but 1/10th the copper.
Other funky solutions have been implemented: chemical sprays with a composition that is watermark and that cannot easily be removed. So when caught the thieves cannot deny because for x weeks the watermark stays, invisible and harmless, on their skin.
One question of course is: what does society think we should do with thieves who create road accidents and who render trains inoperable?
They should be liable for consequential damages.
Make me late to the airport will ya?
Even worse. Sometimes, the dumb fucks think something has copper in it, but actually it's fiber... once two copper thieves simultaneously took out the primary and secondary fiber for the GSM-R network, leading to a complete standstill in Northern Germany [1]. (Personally: given the timing, I think it was Russian throwaway agents, and I do not believe that "copper thieves" cover story for a single second)
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM-R-Ausfall_bei_der_Deutsche...
Europe puts people in trains and freight in semi-trailers. China and Japan are more like this.
India dedicates its rail network 100% to passengers and also 100% to freight. Somehow it works.
Copper sells over $6 per pound these days: https://www.kitco.com/price/base-metals/copper
Not an expert, but I assume $5/lb is the peak value for dropping off nearly perfect condition copper. Not sure how much they’re actually getting for stripped copper wire.