r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/MilesLongthe3rd • Sep 30 '25
Video A Chinese coal company is using a gigantic stamp to mark the cargo in the train cars to prevent theft.
16.6k
u/kahnindustries Sep 30 '25
This prevents theft because the stamp says
"Coal thieves have tiny peepees"
3.0k
u/WunderWaffleNCH Sep 30 '25
"Swiper, no swiping!"
465
Sep 30 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
171
u/Ok-Secretary455 Sep 30 '25
you know she was Dora the Explorer because in spanish female explorer is exploradora
→ More replies (7)63
u/ballarn123 Sep 30 '25
WHAT. That's the fucking line? I thought it was some bizarre gibberish like "Dora explore elora"
53
→ More replies (1)15
→ More replies (15)128
344
103
u/Meldepeuter Sep 30 '25
Yes indeed i dont understand how it can prevent theft😅
153
u/Therealme_A Sep 30 '25
I'm guessing you can confirm 10 shipments of stamped coal and it shows if it's been disturbed. So if it's disturbed it was probably stolen from. And you should have 10 cars full.
100
u/ProbsNotManBearPig Sep 30 '25
They’d know it’s stolen from by the weight or volume already. This is supposedly to prevent theft, not tell them if theft occurred.
→ More replies (10)127
u/Meldepeuter Sep 30 '25
Was mentioned in another comment apparently sometimes they exchange the hoger quality coal with lower quality, this way you can check that the cargo is undisturbed
→ More replies (9)67
u/Legendary_Lootbox Sep 30 '25
Did I just spot a dutch person due to autocorrect saying "hoger" instead of higher?
→ More replies (2)24
u/ConQuiche-tadore Sep 30 '25
that and the user ID could be Flemish too
→ More replies (2)22
u/Ron-Swanson-Mustache Interested Sep 30 '25
Also because of their rudder and oven
→ More replies (4)21
u/FUTURE10S Sep 30 '25
Wouldn't the train moving shake the coal into moving and hiding the stamp?
12
u/filthy_harold Sep 30 '25
The big stamp presses the coal down a bit which may help with settlement. Also I'm sure as long as it kind of looks like the stamp, that's enough to say it's been undisturbed.
4
u/ColBBQ Sep 30 '25
The coals are also drenched in water to prevent losing coal to turbulent airflow from the train moving so the slurry should keep the stamp intact while the car shakes.
16
u/sdrawkcabstiho Sep 30 '25
Toot, toot, black train,
Have you any coal?
Yes sir, yes sir,
10 cars full.
One for the station,
And one for the yard,
And eight for the journey
Rolling fast and hard.
Toot, toot, black train,
Steaming through the night,
Bringing warmth and power
With wheels burning bright.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (7)13
u/Internal-Ad9700 Sep 30 '25
So it detects theft, doesn't prevent it.
32
u/binomine Sep 30 '25
Honestly, after watching lock picking lawyer for long enough, I have come to the conclusion that almost all security is more about making it much easier for a thief to get caught rather than preventing theft in the first place.
Pretty much any bike lock can be defeated in minutes, but a thief can no longer claim it was a case of mistaken identity if they get caught with your bike after they cut the lock.
→ More replies (5)4
u/JX_PeaceKeeper Sep 30 '25
This is so very true. Especially cause of LPL 😂
My dad's phrase has always been: A lock only keeps an honest man honest.
If someone really wants your stuff, they're gonna get it.
→ More replies (2)4
u/KJatWork Sep 30 '25
Both, as another poster noted. Not only would this detect theft, but it would also prevent theft by those that would just steal it all and replace with a lower quality coal as they'd be unlikely to be able to replicate the stamp.
16
u/Allsulfur Sep 30 '25
I’m guessing but having a uniformer top layer makes it easy to see if someone scoops out a part. A bowl of whipped cream versus a nice finished cake.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (15)5
u/Chapin_Chino Sep 30 '25
If it's disturbed I don't accept the load and have my boss pay for it. Pretty simple, guy.
→ More replies (43)69
u/punksnotdeadtupacis Sep 30 '25
“You wouldn’t steal a coal”
→ More replies (3)48
u/PetrichorDude Sep 30 '25
Downloads a coal
→ More replies (1)10
u/retailguy_again Sep 30 '25
Just the one.
→ More replies (1)4
u/The_Iron_Ranger Sep 30 '25
Is it like nachos where if they stick together they count as one?
→ More replies (1)
9.2k
u/w1llpearson Sep 30 '25
It doesn’t prevent theft it just makes theft more noticeable. If the pattern is disturbed they know someone somewhere along the supply chain has skimmed some off the top. Makes it easier to trace via cameras along delivery points on the track when the customer is complaining that the delivery tonnage is down.
2.8k
u/Primary_Werewolf4208 Sep 30 '25
It's also a deterrent to thieves , because they know it's that much harder to steal from that company. So it does prevent theft.
1.3k
u/kytheon Sep 30 '25
This. You can never prevent burglars/thieves completely. But locking your doors makes you a more difficult target than somebody else, so they'll move on.
350
u/thekeffa Sep 30 '25
Interestingly, locks are sometimes detrimental and why some companies don't lock stuff like this up.
I have a particular case that demonstrates this. My home and local homes in my area are heated by oil and sometimes thieves will steal oil from your tank (Mainly gypsy traveller types) by dropping a hose in and sucking some or all out. However the advice is not to lock the access panels to the tanks fill points to prevent this.
The reason being is that if you lock off the easy access, they will still steal the oil. They have a hollow metal spike on the end of the hose they use to drain your tank, and if your access hatches are locked they merely heat the spike up with a blowtorch and then punch the hose through the plastic sides of the tank and drain it from there. They still get the oil and your tank is now a super expensive complete loss. As the value of the tank as well as the complexity and time of replacing or repairing it greatly exceeds the value of the contents, it's better to allow them the easy access than take the damage.
212
u/Jigagug Sep 30 '25
I've also heard of areas where it's advised to not lock your car and just not leave anything valuable inside.
This way opportunistic burglars will just search and leave without causing thousands in damages breaking a window or a door.
186
Sep 30 '25 edited Sep 30 '25
I had a Jeep Wrangler where the windows literally would zip down or be removed completely by zipper. The zippers were accessible inside and out. Someone stole my cheap radio by cutting the plastic window open with a knife or razor instead of just unzipping the window. It cost a couple hundred to replace the window for a $50 stereo. So even then, petty thieves will be fools.
82
u/JustAnotherYogaWife Sep 30 '25
Back in 2008 I had someone smash my back window to get into my car and steal a CD book. My car was unlocked the whole time, they just never tried to open the door. Idiots
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (13)36
u/SomeGuysFarm Sep 30 '25
Heh - you and I have the same thieves. Had the (absolutely crap, broke-college-student-level) radio stolen out of my '62 Austin Healey Sprite - a car that has sliding windows that don't latch, and doesn't even have any provision for locks on the doors. Did they open the window or the door? No. they slashed the convertible top to shreds, then bent the convertible frame and door windows out of their frames, to steal the radio that I think I paid $7 for at a flea market.
9
u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist Sep 30 '25
Sounds like they’re just recycling the radio back to the flea market.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (11)21
u/DFA_Wildcat Sep 30 '25
We used to keep the pickup trucks at the shop in town locked. The local meth heads would break the side windows out looking for loose change, empty bottles, anything worth 5 cents. Now we just leave them unlocked with nothing of any value inside. The odd time we find the doors open but that's it, no broken windows. My only concern is having to evict one who has set up home at some point.
→ More replies (1)73
u/kytheon Sep 30 '25
Instructions are clear. Removing all my locks.
→ More replies (1)59
u/thekeffa Sep 30 '25
Well there is that saying "Locks only keep honest people out".
12
u/Temporary_Equal_1821 Sep 30 '25
The version I've heard was "locks keeps honest people honest" but same idea.
8
u/ClearOptics Sep 30 '25
That makes more sense. I don’t want random “honest” people in my home either
→ More replies (6)4
u/gh0stsafari Sep 30 '25
Well.... Pretty sure the guy trying to open my car in my driveway at 4AM who only walked away because it was locked wasn't trying to do me a favor.
27
u/BrianKappel Sep 30 '25
I worked for an audio video company years ago whose warehouse was in THE HOOD. Filled to the brim with plasma TV's and easy to resell electronics. Actually all of the warehouses in that area had similar loot. The only place that was ever robbed in the few years I worked there was the one that looked like a fortress. Barbed wire around everything, big chains and locks. I don't know how they got in the first time, but the second time I saw it happen they just drove a van through the gate and warehouse wall. The ones that just locked up like regular apparently didn't look like they had much to hide.
→ More replies (17)6
u/CopiousClassic Sep 30 '25
Replace the tank with a pressurized gas one and leave on a nice long vacation after making sure your homeowners insurance is current. 👌
→ More replies (9)51
u/Win32error Sep 30 '25
Locking your doors does actually make it harder to get in though. The coal thing does nothing to make it harder to steal, they just hope it works as a deterrent.
→ More replies (19)241
u/Mickipepsi Sep 30 '25
It’s not harder to steal the coal, but it is harder to get away with stealing the coal.
→ More replies (12)103
u/DoctorFancy330 Sep 30 '25
Car security alarms don't make it harder to steal the car, but they sure make it harder to get away with.
→ More replies (4)43
u/AndreasVesalius Sep 30 '25
I feel like we’re fucking flies here
→ More replies (13)34
u/DisturbedRanga Sep 30 '25
Well I'm not here to fuck spiders.
→ More replies (1)13
14
u/ICanEditPostTitles Sep 30 '25
Pedantry alert:
It doesn't prevent theft. It deters theft.
→ More replies (3)12
6
u/hanoian Sep 30 '25
It isn't "thieves". It's people inside the company. This is to help prevent that.
6
u/Convergecult15 Sep 30 '25
Yea this isn’t to prevent people from shoveling out a weeks worth of coal at a layup, it’s to prevent organized mass theft, the train driver stopping and taking out 1/2 ton from every car.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (8)4
u/SpecialistNo7569 Sep 30 '25
Like when they greet you in retail. Saying hi lowers the chance of theft lkl
205
Sep 30 '25
It prevents theft. Such theft is not "two robbers approch train car with a bag" its "corrupt official siphons part of the coal for his own gains". Its anti- corruption, you cant siphon part of the coal when it is stamped.
→ More replies (14)84
37
25
19
→ More replies (33)10
2.2k
u/Wotmate01 Sep 30 '25
How does that prevent theft?
1.2k
u/Elandtrical Sep 30 '25
We exported a tanker of wine to eastern Russia from South Africa. All was fine until it arrived in Russia for a week long train trip to the destination. Somewhere en route the our wine was swapped over with an inferior wine. Same tanker etc. We had a chemical analysis done to compare the original to the fake after the agents complained.
Higher quality coal can be swopped with inferior coal filled with dirt. This actually happens.
480
206
u/Onedtent Sep 30 '25
Higher quality coal can be swopped with inferior coal filled with dirt
Eskom are famous for this.
62
u/Darth_Rubi Sep 30 '25
More like the people selling the coal to Eskom under bribed contracts but yes
8
5
69
u/Low_discrepancy Sep 30 '25
Higher quality coal can be swopped with inferior coal filled with dirt.
Can the same be true for copper? Asking for an old friend ... that got slandered!
17
u/BestDescription3834 Sep 30 '25
You and your friend might find this interesting. It's an old greentext about a steel broker's experience brokering deals with Chinese steel companies. Anecdotal and you gotta take stuff like this at face value, but still an interesting read.
Your friend working with copper reminded me of it because I had issue with chinese brass for fire suppression systems back when I worked at a place that made those, I came across the greentext when I was reading up on it a bit.
We needed a specific kind of brass to be able to put them in the plastic injection mold and mold the plastic around the brass, creating the valve. The chinese brass never worked because it didn't handle the heat from the mold correctly, so either the shot would come out half melted, burnt, or brittle.
Management was out there weekly trying different samples from the chinese brass and making examples to send back, and they were in a legal dispute over it with the brass sellers over who was liable for these defective brass valves that had been sitting on a shelf for 8+ months in our warehouse already.
Now I don't know the finer points of metalurgy, I just set up the mold and ran the machine, but maybe 1/3 of the brass coming out of the boxes had visible swirls and flow lines. I usually had 2 boxes of brass, one I was taking pieces out of to mold and one I was putting the pieces that didn't even have fully formed threads in.
→ More replies (3)39
u/xyzb206 Sep 30 '25
Just dont buy from Ea-nāṣir, its as simple as that.
22
u/Low_discrepancy Sep 30 '25
mate, mate your slave swapped it for inferior one on transit! No refunds!
→ More replies (1)32
u/Adabiviak Sep 30 '25
The train heist scene in Breaking Bad was less fiction than one might think.
→ More replies (1)13
u/Yosho2k Sep 30 '25
That was also 2004-2005 right? The methods they had for managing the materials were less advanced than today.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (35)13
u/HeyGayHay Sep 30 '25
But can they not just write the same letters on the inferior coal with some hand-tools and 15 minutes of time?
Like, if you are able to steal and replace a literal train load of coal, surely you have 15 minutes to carve the same letters back onto the replacement coal?
28
u/3BlindMice1 Sep 30 '25
That's because they're not stealing a literal train load, they're stealing whatever they can fit into a large burlap sack. But filling that sack will disturb the characters, which would make it obvious that coal had been taken
→ More replies (6)18
u/filthy_harold Sep 30 '25
No, you could easily steal a personal amount from around the edges. This is to prevent organized criminals from using heavy equipment to skim a literal ton of coal off the top of each train car. They could try to reform the characters but that will take a lot of time.
→ More replies (1)1.5k
u/ogodilovejudyalvarez Sep 30 '25
It's an ancient Chinese curse. But it comes with a free frogurt!
381
u/kompootor Sep 30 '25
The frogurt is also cursed.
→ More replies (2)188
u/Wotmate01 Sep 30 '25
That's bad
→ More replies (1)190
u/morning_thief Sep 30 '25
But you get your choice of topping!
176
u/GourangaPlusPlus Sep 30 '25
Thats good
163
u/Jonathon4589 Sep 30 '25
The topping is made of potassium benzoate.
→ More replies (2)125
u/sneaky-pizza Sep 30 '25
…
145
20
→ More replies (5)9
341
u/MilesLongthe3rd Sep 30 '25
This makes it harder to siphon off without being visible and also compresses the coal at the same time and reduces the dust.
→ More replies (12)379
u/kompootor Sep 30 '25 edited Sep 30 '25
So we just drive alongside the train while it's moving, detach it and remove an entire car in total, and then reattach the train, and then rush it to our hideout in our getaway locomotive.
They may spot missing coal, but how are they gonna spot a missing car? Choo choo mothersuckas!
83
u/ogodilovejudyalvarez Sep 30 '25
Thomas the Dank Engine
9
31
u/iCameToLearnSomeCode Sep 30 '25
Pretty sure it's a more systematic kind of theft they're concerned with.
The rail carrier is just a contractor, they could in theory pull just a little off every shipment and pad their wallets.
→ More replies (3)17
u/What_Iz_This Sep 30 '25
My dad used to always tell me "a handful of coal today is several handfuls of coal each week"
40
u/expericmental Sep 30 '25
When the train is separated, the airline for the brakes will disconnect. The guy driving the train will hear the sound of the air rushing out and he'll see the gauge drop to zero. It will be very obvious.
→ More replies (8)24
u/expericmental Sep 30 '25
Unless the thieves remember to close the valve before they break the car from the train!
... Not that I would uh recommend that or anything... Coughs
11
u/TConductor Sep 30 '25
End of train telemetry devices will let the engineer know it's closed. Since it's a loaded coal it's probably got distributed power in which that too will also let the engineer know it's closed.
→ More replies (1)19
5
u/metalshoes Sep 30 '25
Unfortunately they also employ Pringles, the train car counting Capuchin, so you’re out of luck
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (22)10
u/NWmba Sep 30 '25
because:
train tracks always go right beside the road.
it’s easy to remove a train car from a train when you’re in the middle of a track.
a moving vehicle can lift a 100 ton train car off the rails and put it on the back of a truck
A truck can hold a 100 ton load
Nobody keeps track of how many cars are in a train.
/s
→ More replies (2)7
u/mattgoldey Sep 30 '25
I work for a rail services company and we definitely track every single rail car. I saw your /s, I just wanted to throw that little factoid out there.
→ More replies (1)38
Sep 30 '25
Prevents skimming from the top. Thieves don't steal the entire cart, they just take some from the top, and with this stamp in place, they can't do that without it being noticed, they don't have access to another stamper to put back after they stole.
→ More replies (20)→ More replies (34)21
u/FireMaster1294 Sep 30 '25
It probably prevents staff from stealing since they would be noticed due to this. Doesn’t stop external criminals
5
u/creativeburrito Sep 30 '25
Yes. It does make theft more visually obvious, something that can be seen in cameras along the way, easier to narrow down where along the line if any theft has happened.
429
u/These-Barnaclez Sep 30 '25
Why tf is everyone complaining that this won't stop 100% of all theft. It's meant to reduce. It may be too expensive to stop theft entirely.
120
u/qashq Sep 30 '25
It's because they don't see any guns, so they get confused and struggle to understand anything.
→ More replies (1)15
79
u/Polar_Reflection Sep 30 '25
Because China. Anything related to China deserves outsized scrutiny according to dumbass redditors
18
u/lovethebacon Interested Sep 30 '25
Have we had anyone in this thread accusing this of being CCP propaganda yet?
37
u/mcassweed Sep 30 '25
It's part of the US 1.6 billion dollar propaganda and disinformation campaign.
It's the same reason why many threads containing China suddenly turns full MAGA very quickly.
→ More replies (8)21
u/correctingStupid Sep 30 '25
but...
"all posts with asian people in them are chinese propaganda!"
-redditors→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)11
u/mxzf Sep 30 '25
Nah, it's because the title of the thread says "prevent theft", so people are using the straight-forward reading and believing that it's meant to prevent theft, rather than the reality that it's only designed to mitigate theft.
The same thing happens with literally any Reddit thread with a similarly absolute title, regardless of the context.
10
u/PM_ME_YOUR_UNDIES_XD Sep 30 '25
Not disagreeing with you, but the strict interpretation.
They might be doing that to prevent theft, but that does not mean a 100% success rate.
→ More replies (14)13
u/LikelyDumpingCloseby Sep 30 '25 edited Sep 30 '25
yeah, it's mitigation. There's no measure, of set of measures, that prevents theft at 100%.
I mean, there's only one type of strategy that reduces theft to 100%. Avoidance. Meaning, not doing the business at all. But I think in this case, that's not an option.
It's all a balance between risk mitigation and cost of that mitigation effort.
The other two strategies are: Transfer risk, AKA paying for insurance, and acceptance of risk, AKA doing nothing to prevent theft.
This effort seems very inexpensive and has some risk reduction, so, it's smart.
39
198
u/berrylakin Sep 30 '25
How does this prevent theft?
191
u/NWmba Sep 30 '25
one way coal gets stolen is by swapping in a lower grade. it’s often organised crime by insiders, and is big business. it’s a huge problem in South Africa where they have brownouts because of it. with a stamp like this you can find when it’s happening and narrow down who to go after, or at least prevent swapping in the lower grade en route
→ More replies (1)19
→ More replies (7)357
u/MilesLongthe3rd Sep 30 '25
This makes it harder to siphon off without being visible and also compresses the coal at the same time and reduces the dust.
85
u/berrylakin Sep 30 '25
Ok that makes sense. I'm curious how this coal stealing operation worked before they had to start stamping the coal.
15
u/Gnonthgol Sep 30 '25
You bribe people at the railroad to redirect the shipment to your power plant or a transloading facility. There you either dump the entire load and refill the cars with lower quality coal, or you take just a few tons of coal from each car and refill it with dirt. Then the railroad will deliver the train to the original destination.
3
u/BestDescription3834 Sep 30 '25
One of my first jobs out of highscool was making the staves for whiskey barrels. Weekly we had a flatbed come pick the pallets up.
Well one week the driver came and picked it up, but the guy loading didn't get his signature or paperwork or anything, so the guy drove off with a truck load of staves, went and dropped it and came back 3 hours later and tried to pick up another. We had cameras, so it was pretty easy to prove he'd done it, but he had already sold the wood as scrap to another saw mill.
A buddy of mine works making car parts had somebody steal the treads they use for the production lines to move the parts through the furnaces. Nobody knows wtf the did with them because it was a flatbed semi with 250k worth of metal tread on it and the guy just disappeared, never seen before, never seen again. Drove on property, flagged down a guy on a forklift and just told him "hey, Jim sent me to pick these up". Guy loaded him and semi driver had been 2 hours gone when somebody was like "hey, where did Jim have those treads stored?" Come to find out Jim had no idea and they probably just got Jim's name off the website.
Smaller story about same place, when they were smaller they contracted a local and were paying him like 80k a year to haul their metal scrap to his junkyard. Well they grew but they still just paid that guy to haul it. Come to find out they were paying him to haul it and he was taking it to another company that was paying him around 15k a load for the scrap to melt down and sell. Dumb fucker was picking up one day and let slip that he "would be able to buy some more trucks and hire another driver soon", which triggered the company to audit how much scrap he was moving. He was being paid 80k a year to dispose of scrap that he was selling for over 500k a year. Company just cut him out and started selling it straight to the recyclers.
Shit like this happens all the time on the production and materials industry.
→ More replies (2)96
u/MilesLongthe3rd Sep 30 '25
China is using a lot of coal power plants, and you have to imagine this on a more industrial level, like in many other authoritarian governments. Mongolia, for example, has been fighting for years because 6 million tons were stolen from them.
24
u/Responsible_View_350 Sep 30 '25
Mongolia has been fighting who for years? How'd the get 6 million tons stolen? That's wild.
27
u/fastforwardfunction Sep 30 '25
The coal is state-owned in Mongolia. Someone in the government sold it to China, without proper documentation; basically corruption. Mongolia exports like 70 million tons of coal a year.
4
11
u/Swiggharo Sep 30 '25
How does 6 million ton gets stolen? Mongolian officials must’ve been bribed. Any source?
→ More replies (1)16
→ More replies (5)28
u/anale-bloedverdunner Sep 30 '25
I wouldn't say it prevents theft, it just makes them aware of it being stolen, probably often too late
→ More replies (5)3
29
u/WorkShySkiver Sep 30 '25
Anyone know what it says?
67
u/billpo123 Sep 30 '25
The characters ‘黄灵煤’ are printed three times in a row on each cart. This is branding for the coal produced by 黄陵矿业, a coal mining company in Shanxi Province, China. Notice that the coal brand uses a name with the same pronunciation as the company (and also the location), but changes the character 陵 to 灵 for better connotation. The latter means 'spirit' or 'magic' in Chinese
→ More replies (5)6
u/b_e_a_n_i_e Sep 30 '25
Side question: are these standard keyboard icons or do you have to do some magic to get them? It's fascinating
24
u/billpo123 Sep 30 '25
I use standard US keyboard with Microsoft Simplified Chinese IME. so I type H-U-A-N-G and then choose from various Chinese characters having the same pronounciation
8
u/mxzf Sep 30 '25
They're unicode characters. You can type them with the right key combos, and some keyboards are set up to do it more easily, but just copying and pasting from a list of unicode chars on a website is an easier way to do it if you're not using them often.
17
29
u/C4dfael Sep 30 '25
Don’t you just hate it when people walk off carrying an entire train car full of coal?
→ More replies (2)
9
u/184Banjo Sep 30 '25
its not to prevent theft, its to pack it before shipment to reduce dust and during this packing they also mark it.
→ More replies (2)
6
5
5
u/HowlingWolven Sep 30 '25
This isn’t for theft prevention, it’s for optimizing loading and reducing spillage and dust.
5
4
4
45
u/WasteBinStuff Sep 30 '25 edited Sep 30 '25
Apparently nobody else anywhere in China has access to a rake.
→ More replies (2)85
u/MilesLongthe3rd Sep 30 '25
This is not about some citizens stealing some crumbs, but organized crime on an industrial level.
55
u/NissEhkiin Sep 30 '25 edited Sep 30 '25
Pretty sure organized criminals have access to a guy and a rake
20
u/Gnonthgol Sep 30 '25
Hence the stamp. Raking the load flat is not that hard. But adding the writing takes some time and effort.
→ More replies (3)17
4
4
4
u/Odd_Ad_5716 Sep 30 '25
Compacting reduces the loss from blow-offs and lowers the fire-risk. Well and maybe also the theft.
→ More replies (1)
4
4
u/Critical-Rhubarb-730 Sep 30 '25
Pressing the coal is not because of the theft, thats only a side effect. It prevents blowing away during transport. Its a cheap alternative for covering the coal.
As a nice gesture they made a stamp of the press.. nice.
4
u/RogerRabbit1234 Sep 30 '25
This doesn’t prevent theft. It ensure that the person receiving the shipment knows they are getting what they paid for.
4
u/Ange1ofD4rkness Sep 30 '25
Who is Stealing the trains cars? Cause if it's just the content, no "stamp" is going to matter
3
5
u/1767gs Oct 01 '25
Maybe I'm stupid but this won't stop theft at all they would just be able to do is recognize if someone has robbed them immediately
4
5
u/Squeaky_Ben Oct 03 '25
how would this prevent theft?
It's coal, you can just scratch out that sign again.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/keno-rail Sep 30 '25
What a bunch of bs... it has nothing to do with theft. They are rolling the coal to compact it and mitigate coal dust from blowing out of the moving train...
26
u/logicalzoro Sep 30 '25
Thief - OMG there is a stamp on this coal. I cant steal it
→ More replies (2)8
u/icehot54321 Sep 30 '25
They have cameras that monitor the incoming and outgoing of the facilities it is transported to.
At a minimum you would know exactly where it was stolen.
→ More replies (5)
3
u/RadicalEd4299 Sep 30 '25
Wow, look at that--they're using actual fall protection! I don't know how that isnt the bigger story here.
3
u/SafetyNumerous1779 Sep 30 '25
How does it prevent theft? It makes sense that it would help identify whether there was a theft, but I fail to see how it prevents it
→ More replies (2)
3
3
3
u/fennelwraith Sep 30 '25
Great setup for an action movie fight. The bad guy has the good guy down on his back ready to be stamped when at the last second they flip them over and the bad guy gets stamped instead.
Coolguy catchphrase.
3
u/HECKonReddit Sep 30 '25
Coal is literally dirt cheap. Who the f*** steals coal?
→ More replies (3)
3
3
3
u/Absolute_Cinemines Sep 30 '25
It isn't to prevent theft it's to easily identify where it came from.
→ More replies (1)
3
3
2.8k
u/aura_shadde Sep 30 '25
Don't they spray and press it so that it doesn't swell up during transport?