Thursday was the third day since Sunday that vandals stole pieces of the track, causing delays to Tallinn's train system as the tracks had to be quickly repaired.

TALLINN — Bandits looking for an easy way to make money have been stealing components of the train track used by Tallinn’s electric trains, resulting in delays for commuters and a 30,000 krooni (€1,900) repair bill for authorities.

Thursday was the third day since Sunday that vandals struck removing pieces of the track. The problem is so bad that police have even put a 5,000 krooni (€319) reward out for information that helps to catch the thieves.

“People steal metal for selling and they don’t get much money for that but they damage they cause is an average of 10,000 krooni each time,” Urmas Glase, press secretary for Estonian Railways told Baltic Reports. “At the moment the economic situation in Estonia is pretty bad. Usually criminal people start to work harder and there was a similar situation was 10 years ago when we had the other crisis.”

“Thieves worked on the railway and they broke stabilization systems a few times during the last week. The people are stealing the materials for the trains. It is not dangerous because there are alarms and the traffic stops, but later you have to run the system manually,” Glase said adding that repairing the track can take up to half a day.

Each time thieves have dismantled track segments, it has caused delays across the system up to an hour. The latest delay was 40 minutes on Thursday morning. Estonian Railways are having a hard time keeping up with the vandals because they work at night and the evidence of the theft is only discovered during rush hour the following morning.

Citizens are encouraged to report suspicious people they see on the tracks at night. The fine for being inside the track boundaries is 3,000 krooni (€191). Residents have been informed about what uniforms real track workers wear and are asked to report any other people seen on the track.