With its night-time drones, SNCF is strengthening its defenses against copper and metal thefts.

Tired of the chaos generated by the incessant cable thefts that run along its 28.000 kilometers of railway tracks, the SNCF has taken action: the thieves are under close surveillance.

On Thursday, a demonstration exercise was organized for the press in Artenay, in the Loiret region. It took place in the dead of night, as the gangs usually wait for darkness to cut and pull kilometers of copper wire. Reselling it through organized networks is very lucrative, as the price of "red gold" is once again approaching €10.000 per ton.

Under its belly, the drone, manufactured by the Toulouse-based start-up Delair, carries two cameras, including one infrared camera, eyes in the night.

The SNCF fleet, Delair's first customer - which also sells its drones to the Ukrainian army for monitoring the front line - has 200 devices.

"Deter the act"

"This allows us to have data on the entire network constantly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," explains Alexis Meneses, director of strategy at Altametris, a subsidiary of SNCF that manages drones.

Started in 2017, these drone flights to check the condition of railway infrastructure now amount to nearly 2.000 per year, of which 200 are devoted solely to combating intrusions and malicious acts.

On the ground, on the control screen, suddenly luminescent "bipeds" appear near the rails, progressing towards an abandoned station.

Behind his screen, the operator alerts the SNCF railway police. A local officer is dispatched. Most of the time, he "clears up the mystery": it's a worker on the track. Sometimes, a thief makes a run for it.

Since September, four cable-stealing networks have been neutralized, including one caught in the act, explains Christophe Bouteille, deputy director of security (formerly SUGE) for the SNCF group.

"Our primary aim is to deter any act whatsoever," adds Olivier Bancel, Director General of Customer and Operations at SNCF Réseau.

"Reassured"

Thefts are proportional to the increase in the price of copper, Mr. Bouteille points out. "When the price of copper increases, metal thefts increase," he notes, saying he is "reassured" to see that malicious acts have slowed down over the last fifteen years, at equivalent metal prices.

SNCF, which in 2010 recorded some 3.350 metal thefts for a loss of 30 million euros and more than 5.800 hours of delays for its trains, no longer discloses any figures today.

It simply states that it invests €100 million annually in monitoring its railway lines, €20 million of which is dedicated solely to security operations. Cameras, sensors, and good old-fashioned "human intelligence" complete the arsenal deployed to deter intruders.

Others suffer from metal theft: the telecoms group Orange, the high-voltage electricity network manager RTE, construction sites, and even farmers.

In total, according to the Ministry of the Interior, some 2.100 copper thefts were recorded in 2024 in areas under the jurisdiction of the gendarmerie (96% of the territory) and more than 200 perpetrators were arrested between January 2023 and October 2024.

On Thursday, the location of the exercise was not chosen at random. The Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse (POLT) line, which has suffered from multiple delays and technical problems for years, is hosting the largest construction project of the year launched by the SNCF: 70 kilometers of track (rails, ballast and sleepers) are being renovated.

There is no question of taking the risk that the few trains that run in the morning and evening between Paris and Orléans, during the duration of the works, will be cancelled due to cable theft.

"We felt it necessary," explains Mr. Bancel, "to monitor the construction site very intensively with technological means in order to be able to give (passengers) an additional guarantee that the construction will proceed smoothly and that the trains will be able to pass."