Two men were taken into custody on Monday in connection with the theft of several tons of South Shore Commuter Line rails, NICTD Transit Police said.

Michael Szarmach, 30, of 128S 200W in Porter Township, was charged with three counts of theft, one of attempted theft, and one of criminal trespass, Transit Police said; Gregory McNece, 26, of Gary, with one count of attempted theft and one of criminal trespass.

Both men were in custody at the Lake County Jail.

According to Transit Police, Officers Burt Sanders and Howard Morgan, already investigating recent thefts of NICTD rails from the Gary-Chicago Airport Station on Clark Road in Gary, were notified of an “in-progress” theft at that site “by an alert passenger train crew.”

Sanders and Morgan responded to the scene “and found Szarmach and McNece in the process of cutting rail and loading it onto trailers with a tractor,” Transit Police said.

“Although both men had legally registered handguns nearby in their trucks, the demolition saws they were using to cut the rails had previously been reported stolen from the Hasse Construction Company in Calumet City, Ill., and Midwest Masonry in Mundelein, Ill.,” Transit Police said.

The subsequent investigation has determined that Szarmach sold 24 tons—48,000 pounds—of stolen rails to Metal Management Inc. in East Chicago, collecting a total of $6,300 in three separate transactions, Transit Police said.

NICTD’s estimated replacement cost for the stolen rail: $25,000.

“Metal Management is fully cooperating with the investigation,” Transit Police Chief Bob Byrd said.

Byrd added that a third suspect in the thefts remains at large.

Posted 6/25/2010