Jacking parts of locomotive truck assembly for brass that may or not be easily seen by a 'druggie' sounds more like someone who knows what they are doing and probably has a customer somewhere that desperately needs those parts. Speaking as a mostly recovered problem-child, I can almost assure you that those parts didn't go up someone's nose. There are far more easier pickings in the world than that to supply addictions.

You might be better off looking around for someone in the next few months who suddenly has their locomotive back in service.

This very similar problem has been reported here before, under similar circumstances.