Freight rail theft hit US$200 million in 2025. Thieves hit CSX and Union Pacific lines in Memphis, Chicago and Los Angeles; AI cameras now watch the yards.
Thieves stole more than US$200 million of goods from U.S. freight trains in 2025, according to an industry group whose members include CSX Corp. and Union Pacific Corp. The 75,000 thefts marked a fourfold increase from pre-pandemic levels.
One such heist unfolded in November just outside a CSX depot in Memphis. Under cover of darkness, three men emerged from a black Kia Soul, climbed onto railcars and broke container locks, making off with more than US$20,000 in women's clothing destined for a Belk department store and Lazer Blocks toys. They hid the rest in a nearby wooded area and planned to come back for it, according to police records reviewed by Bloomberg News.
The November theft was the kind railyards had seen dozens of times in recent years. This time, AI-powered cameras were watching. A multi-agency task force led by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, backed by the Tennessee National Guard and CSX's police force, launched a plane that tracked the getaway car for 11 miles. Officers arrested one man while he unloaded boxes within hours; the other two were taken into custody over the following days.
The modern train robbery is a long way from the Jesse James and Butch Cassidy outlaw era. The current wave traces to the pandemic, when criminal gangs that had relied on drug trafficking saw their supply chains disrupted just as stay-at-home orders boosted demand for physical goods. They pivoted to cargo theft, concentrating on rail hubs such as Chicago and Los Angeles, with Memphis also a hotspot. Railroads have responded with surveillance cameras and joint law enforcement task forces.
The losses extend beyond Memphis. In January last year, a BNSF Railway Co. train was robbed of about 1,985 pairs of unreleased Nikes worth more than US$440,000, according to a filing in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. Police in Los Angeles discovered US$1.5 million of stolen cargo, including goods from Milwaukee Tool, during a raid. Stolen merchandise in recent cases includes clothing, toys, power tools and tires, court and police records show.
On AlphaScala, CSX stock page and UNP stock page both carry Alpha Scores of 53 out of 100, labeled Mixed.
A CSX spokesperson said more than US$900,000 of tires alone have been stolen from trains across the company's network since the start of 2023.
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