The Guardian: "Millions of trees at risk in secretive Network Rail felling programme"

[hayfield]

But sheep and goats might be the answer to the tree problems, providing the area is well fenced goats especially will eat anything and prevent trees and bushes self seeding. Natural weed control !!

[Wickham Green]

But sheep and goats might be the answer to the tree problems, providing the area is well fenced goats especially will eat anything and prevent trees and bushes self seeding. Natural weed control !!

......... yeah - control while they're there - but you'll see the effects of their natural fertiliser once you move them to 'fresh pastures' .................... and before anybody else BUTS in - yes I'm talking a load of #### !

[phil-b259]

Moderators- I think you should call time on this post now, before it gets too contentious.

 

There is no need to do this - as the topic of NIMNYS / tree hungers complaining about what should be considered essential routine maintenance is a valid one for RMWeb

 

However it would be wise to remind members that Brexit the 2016 referendum campaigns are 'off limits' and should not be discussed on RMWeb (nor threads hi-jacked for this purpose).

 

This is not because anyone can seriously deny the existence of vast flaws / lies / criticisms / etc (of which there are many) in the campaigns being waged by both sides, but that doing so risks destroying the very essence if what makes RMWeb such a civilised and enjoyable forum.

[The Stationmaster]

There is no need to do this - as the topic of NIMNYS / tree hungers complaining about what should be considered essential routine maintenance is a valid one for RMWeb

 

However it would be wise to remind members that Brexit the 2016 referendum campaigns are 'off limits' and should not be discussed on RMWeb (nor threads hi-jacked for this purpose).

 

This is not because anyone can seriously deny the existence of vast flaws / lies / criticisms / etc (of which there are many) in the campaigns being waged by both sides, but that doing so risks destroying the very essence if what makes RMWeb such a civilised and enjoyable forum.

 

Another thing which amuses me about the long-overdue tree felling is that it seems to have taken readers of the Guarniad a couple of years to wake up to the fact that it is happening.

[jjb1970]

Another thing which amuses me about the long-overdue tree felling is that it seems to have taken readers of the Guarniad a couple of years to wake up to the fact that it is happening.

That's because it's top secret don't you know, the latest in stealth technology is to do things in full view after announcing what you intend to do.

[jjb1970]

This reminds me of a Mini-scandal about livestock carriers operating from Australia to the Middle East and other areas. Apparently its another dark secret that nobody in Australia knew anything about. Apart from those in Fremantle who knew when the port stank of ***to that a livestock carrier was alongside. I remember being told all about how horrific the conditions were by the locals 30 years ago and they were right. Livestock carriers have been a disgrace for many decades and its hardly a secret (least of all to government departments, ports, stevedores, people living near the ports etc but because the media just took notice it was all a secret.

[Dunsignalling]

......... yeah - control while they're there - but you'll see the effects of their natural fertiliser once you move them to 'fresh pastures' .................... and before anybody else BUTS in - yes I'm talking a load of #### !

The trick is stocking the area with just enough animals to avoid the need to move them..........

[PenrithBeacon]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/03/network-rail-is-on-the-wrong-track-with-tree-culling

[ejstubbs]

I had a bit of harmless fun reading some of the comments sections on this story last night. Although it was good fun it sort of highlighted the fundamental problem with democracy in that all the ill informed idiots ranting about Network Rail's dirty "secret" are allowed to vote.

 

Which comments were you reading?  AFAICS neither of the Guardian articles linked from this thread were opened for reader comments.

 

RMWeb gets its fair share of ill-informed ranting sometimes.  I'd cite the Tornado thread as one which appears to have prompted some rather forthright assertions that haven't stood up too well to scrutiny.

Edited May 3, 2018 by ejstubbs

[jjb1970]

Which comments were you reading?  AFAICS neither of the Guardian articles linked from this thread were opened for reader comments.

 

RMWeb gets its fair share of ill-informed ranting sometimes.  I'd cite the Tornado thread as one which appears to have prompted some rather forthright assertions that haven't stood up too well to scrutiny.

 

Where did I say it was on the Guardian website?

[PatB]

This reminds me of a Mini-scandal about livestock carriers operating from Australia to the Middle East and other areas. Apparently its another dark secret that nobody in Australia knew anything about. Apart from those in Fremantle who knew when the port stank of ***to that a livestock carrier was alongside. I remember being told all about how horrific the conditions were by the locals 30 years ago and they were right. Livestock carriers have been a disgrace for many decades and its hardly a secret (least of all to government departments, ports, stevedores, people living near the ports etc but because the media just took notice it was all a secret.

A little unfair there. A lot of us did either know or suspect what was going on. Most others, I think, never gave it much thought and simply accepted the Agriculture lobby's assurances that all was well. What's changed is the recent whistle-blower footage that was sufficiently graphic and unpleasant, and seen by enough people, that the whole issue has become impossible to ignore for a much larger number of people than was previously the case. I don't think the livestock industry is going to get away scot-free this time, simply because the electoral maths has been fundamentally changed.

[kevinlms]

A little unfair there. A lot of us did either know or suspect what was going on. Most others, I think, never gave it much thought and simply accepted the Agriculture lobby's assurances that all was well. What's changed is the recent whistle-blower footage that was sufficiently graphic and unpleasant, and seen by enough people, that the whole issue has become impossible to ignore for a much larger number of people than was previously the case. I don't think the livestock industry is going to get away scot-free this time, simply because the electoral maths has been fundamentally changed.

 

The livestock industry has been hiding/denying the truth right from the start. Politician's have fobbed it off for just as long, to protect the industry.

Don't do anything until an 'official report' is completed. Delay until the horrors get forgotten again!

 

The sooner the industry is replaced by one of supplying boxed meat, the better.

[jjb1970]

I'd agree that livestock exports should be stopped except where they transport the animals in a genuinely humane way (for example the way race horses are transported).

 

However, I find it hard to swallow some of the stories of denial. Some of them are coming from shipping journalists, now maybe I'm being unfair but if shipping journalists genuinely didn't know about this trade (which has been going on for lord knows how many decades) then they're either lazy or incompetent. Too many journalists these days seem to rely on press hand outs and to be spoon fed. For example when I read some articles on emissions I recognise the syntax in some articles and have a pretty good idea who really wrote it. The green and animal welfare NGOs certainly knew what was going on but it obviously hasn't motivated them to do the sort of campaigning they can do so effectively when they want to make a point about something until very recently. Politicians certainly knew but accepted it as good business and an export trade. In Fremantle the livestock carriers used to berth in full view of the rail and road bridge over the river at the end of the harbour so all the commuters and people driving by would see them, and it was obvious what they were carrying even to a lay person. Like I say, the locals around the port knew because of the stink.

 

Now would everybody in Australia know what was going on? Of course not. But politicians, journalists, green and animal welfare NGOs either knew or were wilfully ignorant and never bothered making an issue of it until somebody decided to make a TV show and then apparently it revealed a secret that nobody knew anything about. I work in the shipping industry and I find that part of shipping to be shameful, but what it has never been is a dark secret.

 

I really see certain parallels with these stories, but that's just me.

Edited May 4, 2018 by jjb1970

[rodent279]

Leaving aside the animal welfare issue (which we can't really, but it's waaayyy too deep for a bear of small brain like me), the objectionable thing is the deception, almost a double deception, that someone is trying to reveal something as a "secret" that has just been exposed, when really is been going on for years.

 

It's making a news story into something that it isn't, in other words, a variation on "fake news" (don't get me wrong, I'm not calling out tree felling or livestock transportation stories as fake news).

 

Is it any wonder that journalists and politicians are viewed with such distrust?

Edited May 4, 2018 by rodent279

[Arun Sharma]

Anyone who has ever sailed into Jebel Ali, Dharan or Dubai will have smelt the antipodean sheep transporters from several boat lengths away. The animals are being transported so that they can be killed "Halal-style" - hence the unstated message that to object can be construed [by some] in some way as an objection to certain "religious" practices and by extension, to certain religions as well.

[ejstubbs]

Where did I say it was on the Guardian website?

 

You didn't.  And I didn't say that you did.  I asked you where you had seen them since they weren't on theguardian.com.  You chose to nit-pick at my question rather than answer it.  Hey ho.

Edited May 4, 2018 by ejstubbs

[Classsix T]

What's worse, is whistle-blowing in the form of clandestine filming of animal rights abuses within the USA, will now have you chucked in clink under anti-terrorism laws.

 

Big agri making the most of 911, how do these people sleep at night?

C6T.

[The Stationmaster]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/03/network-rail-is-on-the-wrong-track-with-tree-culling

 

Another load of cobblers, where do these people get these nonsensical ideas from?   Standard procedure on the WR was to burn back the banks right up to the boundary fence (and hopefully not beyond it - but accidents did happen) twice a year and what was left was ash.  This process allowed regrowth and it prevented any sort of trees and shrubs ever growing to maturity while also helping seasonal flora and some fauna.

 

When the diseaals came along the practice ceased, as it did where S&T kit was in location cupboards at lineside, in order to save money.  Hence the age of most lineside trees inside the railway boundary fence closely correlates with the end of the age of steam traction as does the gradual increase in leaf fall related wheelslip during both acceleration and braking - on the WR it started to become a noticeable problem in the second half of the 1980s as trees were growing to around 20 year old maturity and spreading leaf fall over a larger area.

[whart57]

Trouble is, what Network Rail overlooked is that a lot of householders have got used to those trees forming a block between their gardens and the trains. That and the fact that the people living in them are a bit more rights aware and a lot less deferential than the people living alongside the line in steam days. It's a cock up in the PR department because NR's case is sound - well apart from the bit about having to make up on years of neglect - but just rolling up with the chainsaws and telling a national newspaper that they have a plan but they're not going to tell anyone what it is is asking for trouble these days

[Mike Storey]

NR have a plan???

 

Seriously, there will be an "as and when" element to the programme which will prohibit a definitive timeline, which is what the protestors want. A declaration of geographic locations to be attended is about as meaningless (to the great unwashed) as a programme based on wet-spot attention. It will not be "secret", only ill-defined up to a few months before each job.

 

I well remember *(pipe, slippers and mug of warm tea in hand) the worst job I ever 'ad. That was to promise the London Borough of Newham and TfL, our embankment re-planting programme on a stretch near West Ham station, opposite a row of fairly recently constructed low blocks of, theoretically owner-occupied, flats, where we had to buy back a 600m x 6m stretch of land (on behalf of TfL) in order to allow a new turnback facility and comply with modern regs. Firstly.almost none of the occupants of the flats actually owned them, so we had little idea of where to send the notices to (the managing agents being less than forthright). Second, our removal and re-planting exercise, planned to the finest detail by my environmentally, very well qualified Swedish assistant, turned out to be completely unacheivable through local contractors. Thirdly, TfL were so terrified of bad press (despite this work being paid for by us, and for their long term benefit) that they went 180 degrees, from claiming what a great innovation this would be, to what a bunch of barstewards we were. In actuality, no-one gave a flying fcuk, once we paid for a new security camera system for the management company, the work got done anyway, but the new, lineside friendly tree planting, did not get done until after the 2012 Olympics (and I had left by then). 

 

Left me even more cynical than I already was.

[whart57]

NR have a plan???

 

 

Well that's what they told the Guardian

 

We used to have an industrial facility backing onto us with a row of trees on their side of the fence. These needed pollarding every few years. Like so many things in the eighties they'd neglected it and one day the guys with the chain saws rolled up. Their switchboard must have melted because the houses around them were occupied by teachers, solicitors, office managers - all people not backward when it comes to dealing with Corporate Britain. In following years they sent someone round putting a short letter through everyone's letter box explaining what they were doing, why they were doing it and when they were doing it. And answering the expected questions about nesting birds and other wild life. That cost less in time and effort and a lot less in terms of lost goodwill than just taking the my land, I'll do what I like attitude.

[scouser]

Millions of trees at risk in secretive Network Rail felling programme

Exclusive: Plan to stop leaves and branches falling on lines has already led to thousands of trees being chopped down

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/29/millions-of-trees-at-risk-in-secretive-network-rail-felling-programme

 

Unfortunately this item has not been opened for readers' comments, so I'm unable to express my acclaim for this admirable programme (although admittedly it might have been better to leave it until the nesting season is over)

Ahh, and this from the "newspaper" that recently said low paid families were not eating fruit and veg because they are so very expensive!

Serves them right for shopping at Waitrose. .....

Edited May 5, 2018 by scouser

[The Stationmaster]

NR have a plan???

 

Seriously, there will be an "as and when" element to the programme which will prohibit a definitive timeline, which is what the protestors want. A declaration of geographic locations to be attended is about as meaningless (to the great unwashed) as a programme based on wet-spot attention. It will not be "secret", only ill-defined up to a few months before each job.

 

I

 

The chap who does my tree trimming in the back garden does a lot of work for NR and the 'as and when' is exactly what it is.  The last time I booked him to do various of my trees he said he was fully booked with various jobs, including a number of railway jobs, for at least the following 5-6 weeks.  He 'phoned three days later to ask if it was convenient to come over as NR had cancelled a job they had him booked for in the Midlands - no explanation why, just that it was 'cancelled', so he came and did my trees instead.

 

(And before anyone asks it was nothing to do with NR staff shortages as all his people who do railway lineside work are fully PTS qualified and he even - at that time - had a couple of them qualified for Lookout duties.  Apparently the usual story is that NR have run out of budget so it is most likely 'as and when they've got some money' as mush as anything else.

[Mike Storey]

The chap who does my tree trimming in the back garden does a lot of work for NR and the 'as and when' is exactly what it is.  The last time I booked him to do various of my trees he said he was fully booked with various jobs, including a number of railway jobs, for at least the following 5-6 weeks.  He 'phoned three days later to ask if it was convenient to come over as NR had cancelled a job they had him booked for in the Midlands - no explanation why, just that it was 'cancelled', so he came and did my trees instead.

 

(And before anyone asks it was nothing to do with NR staff shortages as all his people who do railway lineside work are fully PTS qualified and he even - at that time - had a couple of them qualified for Lookout duties.  Apparently the usual story is that NR have run out of budget so it is most likely 'as and when they've got some money' as mush as anything else.

 

I hope you charged the job to GWIP??

[Mike Storey]

Well that's what they told the Guardian

 

We used to have an industrial facility backing onto us with a row of trees on their side of the fence. These needed pollarding every few years. Like so many things in the eighties they'd neglected it and one day the guys with the chain saws rolled up. Their switchboard must have melted because the houses around them were occupied by teachers, solicitors, office managers - all people not backward when it comes to dealing with Corporate Britain. In following years they sent someone round putting a short letter through everyone's letter box explaining what they were doing, why they were doing it and when they were doing it. And answering the expected questions about nesting birds and other wild life. That cost less in time and effort and a lot less in terms of lost goodwill than just taking the my land, I'll do what I like attitude.

 

Meat and veg as part of a programme for anything likely to disturb residents (or businesses) on any job by the 1990's. I have no doubt that NR will have continued this, despite the claims of "secrecy", on a local basis when such work had become imminent. It had become part of the standard checklist in any project or renewal/maintenance programme in my time there. If you could not show compliance in a peer review, which the project director/route director etc could call at any time, you would be well and truly shafted. Of course, you could lie. And then wait for the letters to the Times.....

Edited May 5, 2018 by Mike Storey