Network Rail's vegetation problem

[Moonshot]

Perhaps I'm being silly, or just missed a point. Just how far away from the rail is a tree likely to be 'safe' ? - presumably, it's largely dependent on the type of tree and leaf ?
Don't leaves blow for a fair distance in winds?
Won't a lot of trees be in private gardens ?
Apologies if all this has been answered, or simply more obvious to other people.....

Whilst I would advocate removal of lineside trees ( which is what Network Rail have done in some areas) , you are right to highlight the fact that private gardens do back onto the railway, which might mean difficulty in getting permission to remove a tree. Network Rail ran up against this issue in Scotland some time ago when the National Trust refused permission for a significant cull. As pointed out though, where trees have been chopped down , conditions do improve.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Not certain this is the right thread for this (mods feel free to move or create a new one), but can anyone explain how the scheduling of RHTTs works? Are these planned in advance or to some extent adapted to conditions and weather? Is there a controlling mind somewhere making these decisions? Are paths in the timetable allocated and then services run when required, or should they be running whenever a path is shown in the timetable? I know on some of the local lines near here that runs are frequently cancelled, but I don’t know if this is by design or due to current issues with staff shortages etc.

With regards to the Salisbury crash I can foresee the press picking up that the previously scheduled RHTT didn’t run, but this might be quite normal with paths only taken if someone decides there is a need (clearly there was here).

Leaf fall isn’t something that happens with any degree of regularity, depends on species, seasonal weather and wind. I have to do leaf clearance as part of my day job, this week there was a huge amount of leaves and debris from the stormy weather at the weekend, but then barely any leaves fell across the site until this morning, three days later. I guess all the loosest ones had been blown down and it took a few days for some of the remaining leaves to ‘ripen’ and fall. It must be hard to plan around such inconsistencies.

RHTTs are generally planned into the base timetable but only operate during the relevant season. There is a long-standing agreement that the paths can be impinged upon by other operators in the ‘off season’ but must be maintained in a valid state to enable them to run in the leaf fall / Winter periods.

From my viewpoint much of the issue with RHTTs is the enormous inflexibility in trying to amend them around other services; very often one RHTT diagram might operate continuously for 12 hours or more, and zip all over the place covering various branch lines and trunk routes - becoming a fixed constraint in the plan. To my mind this suggests that there aren’t enough of them to reliably cover all routes - there doesn’t appear to be sufficient recovery / down time in the schedules to absorb disruption or enable sensible replanning of diagrams to meet changing needs.

Going back to those who are calling for all trees to be felled everywhere and this will solve the problem - just remember the passenger fatality at Oldfield Park a few years ago was caused by an external tree which fell onto/across railway land.

 

[Robertj21a]

Only a guess but I doubt many house owners will willingly allow trees on their private garden to be felled.

 

[Llama]

How much scope is there to remove branches overhanging the railway from a tree growing outside the boundary?

 

[Grumpy Git]

How much scope is there to remove branches overhanging the railway from a tree growing outside the boundary?

You can remove anything not subject to a TPO / Conservation Area which overhangs your property.

You must offer the owner of the tree any arisings.

 

[Llama]

You can remove anything not subject to a TPO / Conservation Area which overhangs your property.

You must offer the owner of the tree any arisings.

One concern I thought might be an issue would be liability if lopping branches perhaps causes a tree to become dangerous, unbalanced or to die off (or all three!)

 

[John Bishop]

How much scope is there to remove branches overhanging the railway from a tree growing outside the boundary?

Anything overhanging the railway boundary is fair game. It’s outside the boundary where things become tricky. It’s about time NR got powers to be able to access and deal with trees outside the boundary if deemed unsafe or problematic.

 

[fourtytwo]

Anything overhanging the railway boundary is fair game. It’s outside the boundary where things become tricky. It’s about time NR got powers to be able to access and deal with trees outside the boundary if deemed unsafe or problematic.

Your scheme would be very popular with suburban homeowners (NOT), you don't seem to have any experience of overzealous little Hitlers making your life a misery like BT abusing there flying rights to foist many unsightly fibre cables across your property etc etc

 

[Trog]

Trees are a menace and should be exterminated on railway cutting slopes and embankments. The ideal plant to grow in such places is grass, which forms a mat to prevent the surface being washed or blown away and does not give cover to burrowing vermin. Trees as already mentioned are a sail that imposes immense forces into the soil via the roots alleged to be holding the soil together. Also if you look at a bank with large trees growing on it in dry summer weather there is usually a dip in the top beside each tree. Lift that out and in the winter when the bank re hydrates you get a series of knobs. Also a tree will shade out and kill the grass under it, the exposed soil then dries out and will then be eroded by wind water and the activities of any animals moving about under the tree.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Only a guess but I doubt many house owners will willingly allow trees on their private garden to be felled.

In most cases, that will depend on the length of the garden and the distance of the tree from the house.

 

[alf]

Trees are a menace and should be exterminated on railway cutting slopes and embankments. The ideal plant to grow in such places is grass, which forms a mat to prevent the surface being washed or blown away and does not give cover to burrowing vermin. Trees as already mentioned are a sail that imposes immense forces into the soil via the roots alleged to be holding the soil together. Also if you look at a bank with large trees growing on it in dry summer weather there is usually a dip in the top beside each tree. Lift that out and in the winter when the bank re hydrates you get a series of knobs. Also a tree will shade out and kill the grass under it, the exposed soil then dries out and will then be eroded by wind water and the activities of any animals moving about under the tree.

This reads like a very good & logical analysis.

It suggests we should get rid of all trees in railway cuttings, root & branch.

Then scythe the grass mechanically every three years to stop sapling regrowth & eliminate bushes giving cover to burrows.

Far cheaper & much less unpleasant than Fisherton tunnel accidents.

Why don’t NR do it properly?
I wish people in authority would read forums.
Probably too busy fantasising about their light plane journeys!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Why don’t NR do it properly?

Monetary cost?

Clearly a 'root and branch' review is needed!

 

[43096]

Clearly a 'root and branch' review is needed!

They've already done a review, a few years ago. They got some "woodland expert" in to do it (aka a tree hugger) with the focus then predictably being on the trees rather than operational safety of the railway. Salisbury will hopefully focus a few minds at NR. It was only luck that meant we didn't have the London train cutting through (or being cut through by) the Bristol-Portsmouth that had gone the other way about a minute before; that would have had fatalities as a consequence.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Monetary cost?

Clearly a 'root and branch' review is needed!

Groan. ( but LOL at the same time!)

 

[Hellzapoppin]

So all the trees are cut down so no more problems with leaves or branches but you've now created another potentially dangerous situation and that's the issue of voiding once the roots decompose.

 

[Annetts key]

While most are jumping on the wooden band wagon, I would just like to point out that in plenty of places, a limited number of trees that are properly managed cause absolutely no operational problems for the railways.

Network Rail does not have the resources to apply a slash everything within the railway boundaries on all railway lines across the whole country.

And the budget given the current political climate is not likely to be increased by any significant amount.

What is needed, is better management of lineside vegetation in areas where it does, or may cause problems (including on approach to signals protecting junctions). And in the cess within 3 metres of the nearest running line.

 

[Brush 4]

It was BR's fault but, inherited by Railtrack and NR. As they have been around since 1994, they should have instigated a cutting back programme, while environmental issues were not yet the cause celebre they are now. A sort of Reversing Beech Trees programme.......

 

[Mcr Warrior]

A sort of Reversing Beech Trees programme.......

Wood you be-leaf it? Think you're being plane silly there! Anything for poplar-ity!

P.S. Enough already of the a-corny puns!

 

[physics34]

I noticed on the west highland line last year that there has been substantial tree growth in some areas that prevents passengers from seeing the great views. This is an issue on other lines too such as the Uckfield line. How can cost be balanced with we need to cut some trees to improve the travelling experience'? It can be done, but i guess the moneymen dont see it that way.

 

[===gricer===]

The Dartmoor Line which is opening on Saturday 20th November is in effect a tunnel of trees along virtually the entire length
from Okehampton to Yeoford when viewed on Google Earth ....

 

[Brush 4]

I remember the West Highland line views were obscured by trees in 1986, 23 years after steam ended. Okehampton has had major tree cutting in the last 2 months, maybe Google is out of date.

 

[Taunton]

I have been pilloried here before in referring to "the old ganger" at Taunton (family acquaintance) back in the 1960s, but he and the team quite readily kept the lineside clear and short grass, with a gang which seemed a fraction of the size of those who turn out nowadays. They had fully unbraked goods trains coming downhill and sparks-throwing steam locomotives to deal with.

Incidentally for someone who had left school at 15 and had only experience from "working his way up", there was a lot of detailed botanical knowledge there, such as differences between the prevailing windward and leeward side of the line, or which low bushes were most effective against snow drifting in cuttings, etc. Nothing written down. I wonder if any of the expensive reports to NR from current "experts" in this area have such understanding.

 

[Grumpy Git]

............. there was a lot of detailed botanical knowledge there, such as differences between the prevailing windward and leeward side of the line, or which low bushes were most effective against snow drifting in cuttings, etc.

On the A515 road where I used to live, the local council used to erect wooden picket "snow fences" upwind at this time of year to prevent the road being blocked by drifting snow.

edit; I cannot remember these being erected since the end of the 1970's. I'm curious as to when they stopped the practice and am in no doubt it coincided with cuts to the local authority budget and/or changes to how road funding was organised.

 

[HSTEd]

People suggesting these huge and never ending clearance programmes.,.....

Where will the money come from?

Stopping a small handful of relatively minor accidents is hardly going to produce a business case.

There are far more egregious safety risks on the railway that would cost far less to fix that go unfixed today.

Like the "crash this train" lever incident on the Caledonian sleeper

 

[Grumpy Git]

People suggesting these huge and never ending clearance programmes.,.....

Where will the money come from?

Stopping a small handful of relatively minor accidents is hardly going to produce a business case.

There are far more egregious safety risks on the railway that would cost far less to fix that go unfixed today.

Like the "crash this train" lever incident on the Caledonian sleeper

People keep banging-on about "leaves being blown about". I can categorically say, that the vast majority of leaves stay within the very close proximity to the tree from which they fell, (much like Ralph Waldo Emerson's "apple").

You could buy a few chainsaws and employ many tree surgeons for the cost of a single RHTT doing a shift.

 

[HSTEd]

People keep banging-on about "leaves being blown about". I can categorically say, that the vast majority of leaves stay within the very close proximity to the tree from which they fell, (much like Ralph Waldo Emerson's "apple").

You could buy a few chainsaws and employ many tree surgeons for the cost of a single RHTT doing a shift.

Are these tree surgeons qualified to be operating next to a live railway, after all as you say the trees that cause the problems are close to the running lines? Or are you proposing mass blockades all over the place forever?

 

[Grumpy Git]

Are these tree surgeons qualified to be operating next to a live railway, after all as you say the trees that cause the problems are close to the running lines? Or are you proposing mass blockades all over the place forever?

Good question. The problem being that the vegetation has been let to get into the current state by years of neglect.................. typical of today's short-term approach to everything.

Whilst growth was checked regularly, there were no arrisings of any size anywhere near the live lines for it to be an issue.

 

[Taunton]

Are these tree surgeons qualified to be operating next to a live railway, after all as you say the trees that cause the problems are close to the running lines? Or are you proposing mass blockades all over the place forever?

It used to be that the adjacent farmers would be subcontracted by the railway to maintain the fencing and landscaping at the railway boundary. Of course, they would just approach from their own land, and had the right sort of tools and plant for the job. Didn't cost much. Has that all been lost in the desire that everything has to be certificated nowadays?

 

[Brush 4]

The loss of local knowledge in so many industries is one of the problems in todays world of work where everyone must take exams and get a bit of paper stating they know it all but haven't actually done any of 'it'. Nursing, police, engineers, and many others. Railtrack dispensed with BR max train loading info on the network. One (minor) example were steam specials on the Blaenau Ffestiniog branch. The old retired boys said you won't get that past the reverse curves at a place I forget the name of. The exam types ignored them. It got stuck just where the old boys said it would. The train had to be split and run in two halves, the branch service was disrupted. Local knowledge should be encouraged, not airily dismissed.

 

[Grumpy Git]

The loss of local knowledge in so many industries is one of the problems in todays world of work where everyone must take exams and get a bit of paper stating they know it all but haven't actually done any of 'it'. Nursing, police, engineers, and many others. Railtrack dispensed with BR max train loading info on the network. One (minor) example were steam specials on the Blaenau Ffestiniog branch. The old retired boys said you won't get that past the reverse curves at a place I forget the name of. The exam types ignored them. It got stuck just where the old boys said it would. The train had to be split and run in two halves, the branch service was disrupted. Local knowledge should be encouraged, not airily dismissed.

We need a "like" button. Off topic, but relevant - I know of a (sadly now closed) stilton cheese factory, where a new management team made all the old hands redundant and brought in "modern practices". They produced no cheese for months and months as they killed all the bacteria which made the cheese go blue, (true story).