Fire Risk

When I was a kid there were still thousands of steam locomotives on the network, working day in and day out, without diesel assistance. I know that we have the effects of climate change and this year an unprecedented hot, dry summer, but back in the day there were plenty of summers that, these days, would have brought about an immediate steam ban. The elephant in the room is Network Rail's (and their predecessor's) chronic mismanagement of the lineside environment. You only have to look back at books of photographs taken before the end of steam to see the main reason for today's problems. There wouldn't be the same fire risk if the network was managed as it was in those days.

 

It's not just fire risk, look at vegetation strikes are affecting some of the rolling stock, it won't be long before a window is broken and then maybe something will be done.

 

A big problem is that they've let it get so far out of hand that the cost would now be prohibitive and the green lobby would be seeking all kinds of injunctions to stop it anyway. I was driving to Bingley last year and noticed that where the Aire Valley line runs alongside the A650 they have cut down a lot of trees on the embankment that were threatening the OLE, but left all the smaller ones that will pose the same problem in a very few years.

 

They did it in Kent a few years ago on some of the gradients, I think they must have employed someone with an honours degree in the bleedin' obvious who thought that there is no problem with leaf fall if there are no trees and bushes, The 'great Network Rail Chainsaw Massacre' resulted in Sole St and most of Martim Mill Bank around Walmer cleared but needless to say it was never maintained and Sole St is now as bad as before.

 

I think the green lobby will be further from the mark than people lobbying because it destroys their views or leads them to experience more sound pollution. I could be wrong but amongst all the other reasons for allowing the lineside to get overgrown (where not encroaching the line) I believe in some areas hiding the railway in both visually and audibly is a factor. But I could totally have imagined that.

 

Driving cabs have windows broken by overgrown vegetation quite frequently.
When a side window in passenger space gets broken and possibly passengers are injured, ORR will just blame the operator for not managing the risk of passengers sitting in a window seat.

 

Back to the operation (or not) of current steam, especially on my home patch in Kent and nearby.

With all it's errors and inaccuracies accepted, for mid-Kent the next 14 days (BBC website forecast) are showing as warm, 21 C to 25 C (yuk!) with just couple of days of drizzle.

Not that helpful for main line and even for normal heritage steam operations.

I just wonder how much good has been done, and for how long the impact of 37 mm of rain here in mid Kent over the last two weeks will last.

Bryan

 

I travelled up to Basingstoke a few years back which had a window covered in black and yellow tape. I assume this had been damaged by line side vegetation, for which the single line section between Dorchester South and Moreton always seems a prime candidate, although there are of course many other locations as well.

 

NR's lack of control will be a prime factor, but these days are different from the BR. Delays now cost money either in true terms (such as delay repay or even things that the railway tries to ignore such as the NRCoT or passenger rights legislation). Then of course there is the internal money go round, much of which, especially now with nationalisation I suspect is "wooden dollars". There is less chance of quickly seeing a fire with virtually no boxes or gangers. Disregarding ambulance chasing lawyers there is the "where there is blame there is a claim culture" that mean that third parties will be looking for recompense.
All this is before you get to the nations now apparent risk averse lifestyle. Personally I am still somewhat surprised steam is still allowed on the network, let alone at time on its own.

 

Situation in the north is similar--- last seven days rainfall Skipton 20mm, Durham 0mm, Carlisle 10mm according to the rain gauge data.

 

We have had 2 days of thunderstorms in Durham, 0mm must be a localised figure, we had 2 torrential 1 hour downpours on Saturday/Sunday.

 

I found that Durham figure hard to understand also. Up here on the Northumberland coast, it feels as if we've hardly had a fully dry day in the past fortnight and we've had a good few days of really heavy rain during that same period, including deluges over this past weekend.

 

Agree completely, my grass has went from brown to green very quickly.

It has turned colder, and when the rain does come, it is in heavy bursts, of less than an hour.

 

When we did work for NR for the so called leaf fall season and the chemicals to be applied to the railhead, I was advised the problem on the lineside is deeper so to speak than it appears on the surface. Tree roots having undermined the earth works makes it almost impossible to remove them. Removing the rootes as well as the visible tree will give an instability to the lineside, increasingly so as the side gradient of the cutting increases, making land slips increasingly likely. The bill to completely refurbish linesides back to no total growth and stability must be horrendous. I guess we will be travelling in increasing green tunnels for the rest of our travelling lives.

 

Sorry guys, the perils of AI headlines. Looking more closely the raingauge at Esh Winning (where that) shows 6.8 mm. Agree about local variations.