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Hey y'all, this is the story's author here -- thanks for upvoting our magazine feature. I hope you enjoy the story, and would also direct you to a video version

Hey y'all, this is the story's author here -- thanks for upvoting our magazine feature. I hope you enjoy the story, and would also direct you to a video version of the piece, which gives a wonderful sense of the passion these folks have for their locos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWCUXoNZYio&t= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWCUXoNZYio&t= This may be a good instance where additional online sleuthing could help solve the crime. If you have any thoughts/tips, please just let me know! Happy also to answer any questions you might have about the story. Thanks for reading! Best, Austin

olivermarks 7y ago
As a Brit I found your article's tone and this video a little patronizing Austin given the gravity of the situation. It's really worrying how people just care about financial value of things to steal with apparently no thought about what has been created and what it means to people. I'd quite like to see the people that stole these found injured 'in a ditch somewhere' as well as the trains https://youtu.be/MWCUXoNZYio?t=306 https://youtu.be/MWCUXoNZYio?t=306
- AustinCarr 7y ago
  I'm sorry to hear that, Oliver. We spent a lot of time trying to strike the right balance of tone and storytelling on both the print feature and web video.
- pbalau 7y ago
  Fully agree with your sentiment. I'm the unofficial bosun of my small sailing club. It pisses me to no end when people are not properly taking care of our boats, not clean them after use, not stowing the sails properly, not even reporting the breakages inherent when so many people (we are renting the club house and the boats to other clubs for costal sailing) use them, so we can fix. 4 of these boats were with the club for 30+ years, helping teach countless new sailors. The value for these boats is about 300 gbp (guessing here) each. But the sentimental value is tremendous. There are pictures with them almost my age. They pop up here and there on various bbc programmes. The yellow genoa and deck, mark 2 Wayfarers, with the sail numbers 1,2,3 and 4 (these are not official) are now part of Brightlingsea. And to be honest, there is no modern dinghy that can match our boats. Not even the 2 newer mk4s we have.
  - olivermarks 7y ago
    I restore old cars and make them perform better as an addiction/hobby. It's discouraging the gradual decrease in people who know less and less about how cars actually work and what it takes to get them working well and safely, coupled with a rise in people whose only interest is how much what they look at for 20 seconds is worth. The lower rung of that ladder is people who see perceived value and then look for ways to steal it and resell it in whole or part online which is alarmingly easy...drug addiction seems to fuel this group, but I suspect the train thieves are a less doped out sophisticated bunch who possibly are even stealing to order, as is often the case with car thieves
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Not sure I associate the old HO/OO and O toy trains at all with the live steam scales. One is a mass produced toy, the other is model engineering that might take hundreds or thousands of hours to make ("who’d built his locomotive over 25 years"). The difference between an art print and an original and as strange to see as discussion of prints in a story an art theft. FWIW the aesthetics of the railway modellers shop site is exactly as I expect from the model engineering, collectors, watch making and similar hobby supply sites. Few are going to make a fortune or scale much beyond enthusiast in a shed. So forget Bootstrap and Shopify, expect lots of non-optimised huge images. :) Not at all surprise to find the police weren't any use. They're far too starved of budget lately to give theft anything much more than a crime number for the insurance claim. Source: Occasional model engineer, though not trains.
baud147258 7y ago
I found the article too long by half and not very compelling to read, so I just skimmed it quickly

olivermarks 7y ago

As a Brit I found your article's tone and this video a little patronizing Austin given the gravity of the situation. It's really worrying how people just care about financial value of things to steal with apparently no thought about what has been created and what it means to people. I'd quite like to see the people that stole these found injured 'in a ditch somewhere' as well as the trains https://youtu.be/MWCUXoNZYio?t=306 https://youtu.be/MWCUXoNZYio?t=306

AustinCarr 7y ago
I'm sorry to hear that, Oliver. We spent a lot of time trying to strike the right balance of tone and storytelling on both the print feature and web video.
pbalau 7y ago
Fully agree with your sentiment. I'm the unofficial bosun of my small sailing club. It pisses me to no end when people are not properly taking care of our boats, not clean them after use, not stowing the sails properly, not even reporting the breakages inherent when so many people (we are renting the club house and the boats to other clubs for costal sailing) use them, so we can fix. 4 of these boats were with the club for 30+ years, helping teach countless new sailors. The value for these boats is about 300 gbp (guessing here) each. But the sentimental value is tremendous. There are pictures with them almost my age. They pop up here and there on various bbc programmes. The yellow genoa and deck, mark 2 Wayfarers, with the sail numbers 1,2,3 and 4 (these are not official) are now part of Brightlingsea. And to be honest, there is no modern dinghy that can match our boats. Not even the 2 newer mk4s we have.
- olivermarks 7y ago
  I restore old cars and make them perform better as an addiction/hobby. It's discouraging the gradual decrease in people who know less and less about how cars actually work and what it takes to get them working well and safely, coupled with a rise in people whose only interest is how much what they look at for 20 seconds is worth. The lower rung of that ladder is people who see perceived value and then look for ways to steal it and resell it in whole or part online which is alarmingly easy...drug addiction seems to fuel this group, but I suspect the train thieves are a less doped out sophisticated bunch who possibly are even stealing to order, as is often the case with car thieves

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Not sure I associate the old HO/OO and O toy trains at all with the live steam scales. One is a mass produced toy, the other is model engineering that might take hundreds or thousands of hours to make ("who’d built his locomotive over 25 years"). The difference between an art print and an original and as strange to see as discussion of prints in a story an art theft. FWIW the aesthetics of the railway modellers shop site is exactly as I expect from the model engineering, collectors, watch making and similar hobby supply sites. Few are going to make a fortune or scale much beyond enthusiast in a shed. So forget Bootstrap and Shopify, expect lots of non-optimised huge images. :) Not at all surprise to find the police weren't any use. They're far too starved of budget lately to give theft anything much more than a crime number for the insurance claim. Source: Occasional model engineer, though not trains.

baud147258 7y ago

I found the article too long by half and not very compelling to read, so I just skimmed it quickly