British police have reportedly started travelling on “ghost trains” at night to catch red-handed scrap metal thieves in the UK.

Undercover police units are travelling on the “ghost trains” with their lights dimmed and their engines muffled to allow specialist officers, equipped with infrared cameras, to catch criminals in the act, the Daily Mail reported.

The initiative is aimed at countering the metal theft crimewave that has caused chaos for rail passengers. In the past seven months alone, 1,969 trains have been cancelled because of 675 copper cable thefts across the network.

This has left Network Rail, which owns and operates Britain’s rail infrastructure, with a £10.1 million bill — which it admits will be passed on to fare-paying commuters.

The “ghost trains” are four carriages long and carry a team of four officers from British Transport Police and Network Rail. They employ thermal-imaging equipment with a range of 440 yards to scour sides of the track for criminals, and use torches to inspect cables running above the train for evidence of damage or theft.

The officers are also poised to trigger powerful lamps mounted alongside cameras in front of the train, positioned to record any suspicious activity ahead.

The police teams are in constant radio contact with police vehicles, which follow the train’s route by road, ready to chase any criminals attempting to flee. And helicopters are kept on standby to provide relevant air support.

A Network Rail expert estimated the number of “ghost trains” being operated on stretches of track most commonly targeted by thieves has quadrupled over the same period.

“It is a tactic we are increasingly using to counter metal thieves as well as to provide a deterrent,” Matthew Dickerson of Network Rail was quoted as saying.

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