On Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:01:07 +0100, "
wrote:

On 03/07/2012 15:52, mechanic wrote:
On Tue, 3 Jul 2012 04:51:08 -0700 (PDT), SB wrote:

Railway workers jailed for stealing £1.5m worth of track to sell for
scrap

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/903975-r...sell-for-scrap

Wow, used rusty rails are worth, what is it, 7.5k a tonne? What are
they made of?

Steel.

Depending on the grade, it can be worth as much as £200 per tonne.

US prices for non-scrap rail would seem to be in the range of 600-800
USD per net ton :-
http://www.sterlingrail.com/classifi...pe=Rail&fsw=FS
so assuming it costs at least as much then at the current exchange
rate roughly 400-500 UKP per tonne but going back to the original
article "The offences first came to light when 208 tonnes of rail was
found to have been removed" so 208 tonnes of rail is only part of the
loot which would presumably involve more rail and an unspecified
amount of non-ferrous.