vegetation management

[Clarence Yard]

Edwardian era photographs frequently show how manicured the trackside was pre WW1. For instance , some of the grass near junctions looks to have been of a lawn quality that would not look out of place at Wimbledon. Presumably this level of upkeep could not be maintained in the less economically favourable times post war.

In my youth, I recall coming across some more or less empty discarded tins of railway weedkiller, clearly labelled as containing DDT. A potential souvenir I was unsurprisingly not encouraged to keep! Nasty stuff - no doubt highly effective on the weeds and bugs, but what it did to everything and anyone else wasn't good news.

DDT wouldn’t be much good for weeds. The weedkiller used by BR was 245-T, effectively Agent Orange. As well as being sprayed by the weedkiller trains, you could get it in drums to make up your own mix. It was dodgy stuff but highly effective.

When that got banned, after a short time the weeds started to grow again. That’s when we started to lose control of the situation. The modern alternatives are not nearly a match to 245-T.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Perhaps NR should investigate a full size model one of these. Video shows a homemade rail mounted model railway vegetation clearance train.

 

[6Gman]

1. Enhanced environmental legislation. (No more 245-T and cutting vegetation whenever you choose)
2. Enhanced H&S legislation. (Tighter control of on-track work)
3. Staff expect decent wages. (To go out in the pouring rain to manicure the trackside)
4. Lineside cables rather than telegraph poles and mechanical signalling wires/ point rodding. (Controlled burning? No.)

 

[LickeyIncliner]

Good to see one team out tackling excessive lineside vegetation today. Though the very noisy operation going on outside my window is on the Powderhall Branch, which has not just been disused since about 2017 but is now completely disconnected from the rest of the network...

 

[Dr_Paul]

It's been sorted out now with some trimming, but the up Windsor line from North Sheen to Mortlake had until recently bushes that scratched noisily along the side of the carriages. I was once on a Waterloo service that went on the relief line around the back of the flyover near Queenstown Road, and the vegetation was scratching the side all the way along. Many parts of the six foot (would the plural of six foot in this context be six feet or six foots?) between Clapham Junction and Waterloo have quite substantial bushes. Thinking back to my childhood in the 1960s, I'm sure that this wasn't the case back then. It does make the railway look unkempt.

 

[RichardAsh1981]

The old adage was "nothing higher than a blade of grass inside the fence". Lineside fires were a major problem with steam traction hence regular scalping of embankments etc. by the pway gang.

The aim here was surely to minimise the fuel available for a fire, should one happen. Cutting the grass once a year, and taking it away (probably useful to animal owners at the time) meant dead material did not build up, and neither did soil fertility, so less grew over time. Hence the slow but steady increase in vegetation growth once cutting ceased - made worse by the fact that cut trees are chipped and dumped on site (occasionally over the neighbours fence!) so rot down and fertilise the next lot! You would almost think the decisions were taken by contractors paid to keep coming back and re-doing it.