I had a chat with the "leader" of this gang of thieves who told me that they were taking these wooden sleepered track panels as concrete track panels were being delivered shortly.
Several days after I'd taken these photos I met Chris Shroeder from Vintage Trains at the site. He was managing the development of the site at that time. I asked him how things were going and he told me about the theft of the track. It simply did not occur to me that they were pinching it.
Soon afterwards the plans for the steam centre were dropped by Vintage Trains.