Two residents of North Bend face arraignment on theft charges on Wednesday, Jan. 5, in the King County Courthouse.

The men, 25-year-old Nelson Larson and 24-year-old Joshua Davis, are accused of stealing more than $32,000 worth of railroad track rails on May 10, 2010, according to the certification of probable cause from the Snoqualmie Police Department. The rails were reported to be the property of the Northwest Railway Museum.

According to the police report, a witness, Scott Crews, observed a white Ford pickup towing a flatbed trailer with several rails on it, around 2 p.m. Since the vehicle didn’t look like a railroad vehicle, Crews reported that he wrote down the plate number and went to check on the museum’s rail storage on Stone Quarry Road; crews contacted museum manager Richard Anderson, who contacted police, documents stated.

The site of the theft displayed three “No trespassing” signs within 50 feet of the rails, the police certification stated.

Two officers then looked up the address on file for the trailer, which was registered to Larson. The papers stated that the officers contacted Larson and he told them his friend, Davis, was on his way to Woodinville with the rails, to recycle them.

The officers telephoned Davis, and advised him that the rails were stolen property. According to the charging documents, Davis said he had not seen the “No Trespassing” signs, and that the rails had been there for years, so he assumed they were junk. He returned the rails to the site.

Both men will be charged with first-degree theft and second-degree criminal trespass.