>The trains are clearly being robbed out of desperation by the poorest citizens.
That isn’t clear to me at all. In Washington DC, for example, much of the recent increase in theft (grand theft auto especially) has been committed by unsupervised juveniles. AFAICT they do it because they’re bored, it’s easy, it’s exciting, and they generally escape punishment. Who’s to say it’s not a similar situation with these train robberies?