Modern Image lineside and Ballast vs 1990s and 1950s

[The Stationmaster]

I hear what you say Phil, but that last picture is TOTALLY unacceptable

Drivers can't see you guys and you can't keep a good look out and it would be quite easily for you chaps to get caught with nowhere to go

I think its its time both unions took network rail to task over it before someone gets killed

 

Absolutely spot on Russ.  Fortunately (for once) there aren't any signals to be obscured in that vicinity but that is hardly the point - how the merry heck does a Driver actually know where he is as his train wends its way, potentially at considerable speed, through what amounts to a featureless lineside.  There has been a considerable amount of lineside tree clearance on the Western (as it once was) in recent years but not only has it failed to reach Chalford but has also not been followed up in most places by any effort to stamp out the undergrowth which has followed clear felling.  And it is obvious from some linesides that modern weedkillers do have some effect.

 

But there is no weedkiller on earth short of a major defoliant which could deal with that atrocious mess at Chalford and alas it is not alone in deteriorating to that atrocious state in Railtrack/Network Rail times.   Basically it is down to a lack of care and a lack of realisation that there really are safety issues involved.  Incidentally, the overbridge apart, the site of Chalford station was much more readily discerned even in 1985 when we were running the GW150 Swindon - Gloucester steam excursions.  True things deteriorated in later BR days but to nothing like the shambles we see today.  Maybe the answer at Chalford would be regular steam working with a few damaged ashpans and no smokebox spark arrestors?

[bécasse]

I find it interesting that (presumably) professionals should come forward and defend NR on the basis that it is all down to "environmental" regulations. Those regulations have as their basis EU rules but the strange thing is that I can look at a stretch of Belgian Railways' track and there isn't a significant weed to be seen, yet I can assure you that weeds grow just as readily in Belgium as they do in the UK.

[phil-b259]

I find it interesting that (presumably) professionals should come forward and defend NR on the basis that it is all down to "environmental" regulations. Those regulations have as their basis EU rules but the strange thing is that I can look at a stretch of Belgian Railways' track and there isn't a significant weed to be seen, yet I can assure you that weeds grow just as readily in Belgium as they do in the UK.

 

Firstly what SNCB, SNCF or whoever decide to to in Belgium, France etc is not decided by MPs sitting in the Palace of Westminster. While the legislation to protect nesting birds in the UK may be inspired by EU directives - as with everything else people try and pin on the EU how each country decides to interpret said directives is up to the individual counties concerned. Therefore what SNCB may be allowed to do (or perceive itself to be allowed to do) will differ from the UK.

 

Secondly anything is possible if you throw enough money at it and are willing to sustain that investment in the long term. The situation on National rail network is that ever since the late 1960s there has been a culture which says that there is no 'need' to spend valuable resources on keeping the lineside clear of trees and weeds. Which would you rather of had - the IC125 for cross country or some nice clear linesides because HM Treasury was never going to fund both! When comparing the situation in the UK to countries like Belgium or France you need to remember that unlike the UK, the Governments of said countries didn't spend around around 3 decades slashing the amounts they gave to their national rail operator and neither have they wasted / continuing to waste vast sums of money in a flawed* privatisation model.

 

Thirdly this apparent ignorance of vegetation issues goes well beyond railways - far too many road signs are obscured by vegetation these days (and I'm not just talking about local council maintained roads here) while in comparison to what I remember of my childhood, cutting of grass in the central reservation / verges of the nations motorways / trunk roads also seems to have been abandoned (along with litter / vehicle debris clearance). There seems to be a real problem with central Government culture where it doesn't understand that nothing is ever 'maintenance free' and there is constant pressure to slash what is seen as 'frivolous' expenditure. With public bodies like NR and Highways England expected to dance to the tune of HM Treasury why are people still surprised that the Chalford situation continues to happen.

 

Fourthly the fact that those now banned weedkillers hung around for ages in the soil plus starting from a situation where the linesides were clear of large vegetation means that it was easy to get into the habit of assuming nothing needed doing and that vegetation clearance was necessary - until its too late. Had budgets not been cut under BR then yes, its quite likely that vegetation management would be much better today within NR as a consequence of it being embedded in peoples minds and route budgets / routine plans for decades.

 

*flawed because of their constant meddling and hopeless decision making which has led to 3 failures of the ECML franchise thus far, etc rather than the wider concept of franchising / tendering / concessions, etc

Edited August 13, 2018 by phil-b259

[phil-b259]

Absolutely spot on Russ.  Fortunately (for once) there aren't any signals to be obscured in that vicinity but that is hardly the point - how the merry heck does a Driver actually know where he is as his train wends its way, potentially at considerable speed, through what amounts to a featureless lineside.  There has been a considerable amount of lineside tree clearance on the Western (as it once was) in recent years but not only has it failed to reach Chalford but has also not been followed up in most places by any effort to stamp out the undergrowth which has followed clear felling.  And it is obvious from some linesides that modern weedkillers do have some effect.

 

 

What far too many folk seem to be losing sight of with respect to Chalford is that whats done is done. You can shout, stamp your feet, throw hissy fits as much as you like but none of that will do anything (or be of any help) in getting the vegetation removed. That it should never have been allowed to get to that stage by the local route management (please note what I said earlier and some NR managers DO ACT to prevent such things happening on their areas) is a given.

 

For any work to be authorised now while we are in the bird nesting season requires lots of evidence to be submitted (e.g. driver reports, close calls, invoking the worksafe procedures, etc) so that NR can show that any vegetation removal falls under the "emergency remedial work needed to ensure the safe running of trains now" box can be ticked (note if there is any suggestion the work can be deferred till after August the legal brigade / environmentalists / MPs / journalists  will expect NR to go down that route).

 

More widely I would agree that there needs to be a culture change in how the railway manages lineside vegetation - building on the best practice some areas of NR already seem to doing. However against a backdrop of complaints from the public about 'environmental vandalism', pressure from HM Treasury to 'cut costs' and various things like environmental / H&S legislation / ever more trains being run all ramping up the cost of undertaking the work, said culture change will not be easy to bring about or sustain in the long term......

Edited August 13, 2018 by phil-b259

[russ p]

I hate to say this but I can't see anything changing until there is a serious accident because of it.

Its not just that location but country wide, yards full of brambles and budlia the list goes on and on

I was on a T3 last year on the east Suffolk roughly every half mile or so there was a hospitality unit, no one was using them , so if they have money to waste on things like that in the name of H&S why do they let the lineside become a death trap.

I think when they set up offices in Milton Keynes and such like to rid themselves of remaining BR staff they also lost the ability to departments to communicate

[The Stationmaster]

What far too many folk seem to be losing sight of with respect to Chalford is that whats done is done. You can shout, stamp your feet, throw hissy fits as much as you like but none of that will do anything (or be of any help) in getting the vegetation removed. That it should never have been allowed to get to that stage by the local route management (please note what I said earlier and some NR managers DO ACT to prevent such things happening on their areas) is a given.

 

For any work to be authorised now while we are in the bird nesting season requires lots of evidence to be submitted (e.g. driver reports, close calls, invoking the worksafe procedures, etc) so that NR can show that any vegetation removal falls under the "emergency remedial work needed to ensure the safe running of trains now" box can be ticked (note if there is any suggestion the work can be deferred till after August the legal brigade / environmentalists / MPs / journalists  will expect NR to go down that route).

 

More widely I would agree that there needs to be a culture change in how the railway manages lineside vegetation - building on the best practice some areas of NR already seem to doing. However against a backdrop of complaints from the public about 'environmental vandalism', pressure from HM Treasury to 'cut costs' and various things like environmental / H&S legislation / ever more trains being run all ramping up the cost of undertaking the work, said culture change will not be easy to bring about or sustain in the long term......

 

What is done can easily be undone Phil - all it needs is men with chainsaws and chippers.  If you look at the bottom end of my garden right now it's little different from looking at that lineside mess at Chalford.  But when I get my regular contractor in and he's done the job it will look totally different - exactly in the way it does when he does the same job for NR.  The only differences are that no trains pass the bottom of my garden so there are no real potential risks oh - and very important to my regular contractor - I actually pay him on the day he does the job, unlike NR who can take literally months to cough up for his work.  The other big difference is that all he needs here is a generic risk assessment which I go through with him - no need for him to spend a lot of money maintaining the safety qualifications and training (rightly) required by NR - they do provide plenty of work for him and his team but they are atrocious payers so he's forever taking a financial risk when he's working for them.

 

 Personally I would clear fell the linesides to get them back to the environment they used to be offering homes to a far greater variety of our own natural flora and fauna even with bi-annual bank burning (although the latter would probably now be as illegal as stubble burning).  The simple answer is that NR could do the job and clear the overgrown linesides with much of the work being on safety grounds but they can't be bothered to do so in far too many places.  And you could ask why they've also allowed cesses to become overgrown removing vital safety locations for those working on the track and making it more difficult to see approaching trains?   there's even the ludicrous situation where a banner repeater has been provided in recent years for a signal which has been in place for over 60 years - it would have been cheaper to chop down and kill the roots of the trees which had grown up to obscure the sighting of it!

[phil-b259]

What is done can easily be undone Phil - all it needs is men with chainsaws and chippers.

 

Only when the bird nesting season is over Mike!

 

Yes, it wouldn't take too long to do physically , but unless the boxes can be ticked to say there is a genuine H&S issue that cannot wait a couple of months then it cannot be 'undone' as quickly (in the sense of actually starting work on site) as you imply.

 

 

I actually pay him on the day he does the job, unlike NR who can take literally months to cough up for his work.  The other big difference is that all he needs here is a generic risk assessment which I go through with him - no need for him to spend a lot of money maintaining the safety qualifications and training (rightly) required by NR - they do provide plenty of work for him and his team but they are atrocious payers so he's forever taking a financial risk when he's working for them.

 

 

Sadly NR are not alone in being 'bad payers' - most large corporations are. Almost 2 decades at the start of my railway career I went on a few training courses at Crewe and we were initially put up in a premier Inn style place near Nantwich. After the first few courses this changed to being whatever they could find  - the reason? AMEC were very late in paying the hotel bills!

[HillsideDepot]

I'm not so sure that the bird nesting thing is quite so "black and white"; or at least if it is Western Route have a different interpretation. I travelled the mainline through Devon quite a lot last month on a Rover and there were many examples of cleared line side vegetation with odd trees, or small clusters of trees left standing. On one of the slower climbs of the banks it was possible to see the isolated trees had tape around them and no-entry: birds nesting signs affixed. 

 

Now, I have no idea if that course of action is good practice, or whether it is bending the interpretation beyond what was intended, nor do I claim that cutting the majority and coming back for the rest is a cost effective way of doing the work, but it has been done that way in Devon. I should be back down that way next month, it will be interesting to see if there is any sign of further work.

[phil-b259]

And you could ask why they've also allowed cesses to become overgrown removing vital safety locations for those working on the track and making it more difficult to see approaching trains?  

 

I have done - but the answers are (i) lack of money AND, perhaps more importantly the high ups (from the CEO down) don't want us out working red zone (with lookouts) anyway! Hence we are getting ever increasing restrictions on where we can go without taking line blockages or needing to secure the services of a LOWS (Lookout Opperated Warning System) team (see http://www.schweizer-electronic.co.uk/rail-applications/lookout-operated-warning-systems-lows)

[ess1uk]

But you still need a clear cess for a position of safety even with LOWS and they are few and far between

[phil-b259]

But you still need a clear cess for a position of safety even with LOWS and they are few and far between

 

Very true, but putting one POS every 500 yards say (a bit like those emergency refuges the Government like on their 'Smart Motorways' instead of a continuous hard shoulder) will be significantly cheaper than having a decent cess throughout.

 

Not that I personally think it (or the lack of hard shoulders on widened motorways) is a good idea mind.

Edited August 13, 2018 by phil-b259

[russ p]

One other thing that has not been mentioned here, in an emergency even today train crew could still have to carry out emergency protection.

How do you do that quickly and safely with an overgrown cess?

[CazRail]

Ive been to sites where sections of line have been made red-zone prohibites due to vegetation(or close proximity of it to the running line). Signals and crossings are managed, obscured signals and signage reported by drivers to fault control, and crossings periodically inspected by crossing inspectors. All these instances are regarded as faults and responded to by on-call NR staff.

[The Stationmaster]

One other thing that has not been mentioned here, in an emergency even today train crew could still have to carry out emergency protection.

How do you do that quickly and safely with an overgrown cess?

 

I suspect that wouldn't even occur to those in senior positions in NR as they tend not to have any operational railway experience at all and simply rely on what RSSB puts out (not their higher echelon can boast much, if anything, in the way of practical  ground level experience either).