Southern Vancouver Island Railway is scrambling to get rail freight service back on track after thieves disabled both of the company’s locomotives on the weekend.

Sometime between Saturday evening and 5:30 a.m. Monday, someone crawled under two diesel-electric locomotives parked at the company’s switch yard on Esplanade Avenue and made off with copper power cables that feed electricity to the locomotive’s motors.

They are the sole locomotives that haul rail freight on Vancouver Island.

Mark Hughes, SVI operations manager, said the missing cables were discovered by a maintenance worker who spotted brackets that held the cables in place lying next to the tracks.

Hughes said SVI has already turned back one ferry load of freight cars from the Lower Mainland.

“Even if there was a way to get them off the boat, we can’t take them anywhere,” said Hughes Monday. “We’re actually dead in the water right here.”

Diesel-electric locomotive technology is somewhat similar to modern hybrid cars. Diesel engines turn generators to produce electricity, which is sent through heavy copper cables to electric motors located between the locomotive’s wheels.

Hughes and SVI general manager Don McGregor agree it would likely take someone with specific knowledge of diesel-electric systems to pull off a theft of this nature.

“You can see how the cables have been snipped off,” said Hughes. “[Air lines] look very similar and they didn’t go after those.”

The cables carry 600 volts of direct current at high amperage which, even though the locomotives were not operating, could have carried a static charge that could have been deadly, said McGregor, who has 34 years of railroading experience, but has never seen anything like this.

There is little scrap value to the cable, but the repair costs and lost business revenue will likely run into tens of thousands of dollars.

“It’s a question of us picking it up now and doing the best we can to get it in service as soon as possible,” said McGregor. “We’ll do our best to try for three days – and a week at the maximum, but you can imagine this is only a few hours old and we don’t know really what we’re up against.”

The company is trying to co-ordinate ferry schedules and decide whether a repair team from New Westminster can get the locomotives running or if replacement units need to be shipped from the Lower Mainland.

McGregor said there were security guards on site over the weekend and police make regular patrols.

“What I can tell you is we’re looking at immediate improvements in security,” said McGregor. “We have a security company, but we’re looking at an elevated level of security with several options elevating physical security on the property and potential electronics enhancements.”

Fencing of rail property on Esplanade was completed up to Crace Street, but Canadian Pacific property around Front Street has yet to erect fencing that would help protect the remainder of the switch yard.

“I believe CP is working with the city on that,” said McGregor. “Obviously we’re going to be checking on that to see how fast that can be done.”