Leaves on the line
PAUL CLIFTON joins a railhead treatment train crew at dawn to clear the lines of slippery seasonal disruption
RAIL joins a railhead treatment train that will keep peak-hour services moving into London’s busiest terminus.
IT’S half-past four in the morning. But already the Balfour Beatty depot is busy. Welcome to Effingham Junction in Surrey. Inside the brightly lit shed, the fleet of leaf fall trains is being prepared for the day ahead. Tanks are being filled. Connections are being checked.
We are joining a pre-dawn run to keep rush hour services moving smoothly into London’s busiest terminus. There’s a driver at each end of the train. Lee Brown and Richard Bird are already in their seats, checking the systems.
“We’re going to Wimbledon,” Bird explains. “We change ends there. Then down to Basingstoke. Change ends. Back to Woking. Change ends. Aldershot. Back to Woking. Then Wimbledon again, Surbiton and Basingstoke again. After that we go to Guildford. We do the fast lines then the slow lines.”
The train leaves Effingham just before 0500. It gets held up for a few minutes because an overnight track possession for maintenance has over-run near Hampton Court. At this time of the morning the lines are empty, the stations deserted.
From early October to early December these specialist trains are running night and day. Across the main routes into Waterloo, the railway runs in deep cuttings. A generation ago, they were regularly stripped of vegetation, so that smuts from passing steam trains did not spark fires. But for more than half a century, trees have matured to cause seasonal disruption. When trains run over fallen leaves, they are crushed to a sticky paste, making the tracks slippery.
“The train carries everything we need - water and sandite,” says Bird. “But we have to bring our own bags with food and drink. We’re out for the next ten hours.”
Alongside him sits operator Craig McLennan. In front of him is a modern computer screen that looks out of place in the well-used and slightly worn cab. It monitors the stocks in the tanks behind us. It’s McLennan’s job to control the leaf fall equipment.
“It’s mostly about the water jets,” he says. “They spray at extremely high pressure onto the railhead. We carry 20,000 litres of water on the train. Then we lay a track gel called sandite where it’s needed - mostly coming up to platforms and signals - to help the wheels grip.”
The operator has a tick sheet for the route, measured out in miles and chains, and telling him where to lay the sandite. He reads his position off the mileage posts along the railway. “We’ve got enough water for 11 or 12 hours,” adds McLennan. “There’s always enough for the trip.”
The first light of dawn is around 0630. The first bleary-eyed commuters start to appear on platforms. Few of them bother to look up at the
It’s mostly about the water jets. They spray at extremely high pressure onto the railhead. Then we lay a track gel called sandite to help the wheels grip. Craig McLennan, leaf fall equipment operator
peculiar leaf clearing vehicle as we hiss past, with a little fine spray appearing from beneath the centre of the train.
What does slipping on crushed leaves feel like?
“When you start to apply the brake, you get this quietness,” driver Brown says. “I felt it just then, actually.” The rest of us in the cab had not noticed. “It is quite a long silence sometimes. Then, all of a sudden, the wheels start to dig in and you slow down.”
Is it unnerving? “I wouldn’t say that. But you’re certainly looking at your instruments to see if you’re slipping or not. And you can miss a platform or a signal if you get it wrong.”
Brown is one of the most experienced drivers in the region. He’s qualified to work any of the diagrams out of Effingham, which cover most of the Wessex region. He can also drive out of Horsham depot on Southern. In the darkness, away from stations, it’s very hard to know where we are. But Lee clearly knows every curve, every lineside box, everything that identifies the exact location.
The other driver, Bird, is a newcomer to the leaf fall trains, and is currently cleared only on the specific routes we are taking today. He has transferred after five years driving the High Output Plant System train built specially for electrifying the Great Western. He says the train was being used less and less effectively, and the highly specialised drivers operating it gradually saw the writing on the wall and started looking for other jobs. After five years mostly working nights, an 0400 start is almost civilised for him.
“This train now goes out round the clock,” he says during a five-minute stop in a siding just south of Woking station. “We are the day crew. It might not feel like that in the dark, but the night crew starts in the middle of the afternoon. They work until one or two in the morning, then the train goes back for more supplies, and we leave again just before five.
“What we’re doing is giving control back to the drivers. Because the leaves act like pouring oil on top of the rail, the train just slides away. Oil on metal against metal isn’t a good thing anywhere except inside an engine. So, we are cleaning that greasy stuff away and laying a bit of grit down.”
Usually only one driver is on each train, walking from one cab to the other each time a change of direction is required. Today is different, perhaps because I’m on board with a BBC film crew. It is the first time in 25 years of telling leaves-onthe-line stories on television that we’ve been allowed to do this. It is possible to squeeze past the machinery on board to move from one end to the other, but in practice it is much easier to climb down to a platform and walk alongside.
Through the leaf fall season, South Western Railway is running a temporary timetable, which slows journeys down. Trains need longer to brake for stations and signals, and they accelerate more slowly. Normal schedules won’t resume until early December. This year there is an added problem. In the spring, Network Rail was criticised by environmental groups for felling too many lineside trees. Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling ordered a review into the issue. The outcome is due imminently. But during the summer the usual vegetation clearance has been trimmed back, particularly where the bird nesting season is affected. Normally Network Rail fells about 50,000 trees a year.
For example, clearance of cuttings along seven miles between Hinton Admiral and Bournemouth stations was halted. It resumed in September, removing trees up to ten metres either side of the track.
Nationally last year there were 400 incidents when trains collided with fallen trees or branches. There were a further 1,000 incidents where they caused delays. Network Rail put the cost at £100 million.
Nothing so dramatic happened on our journey. Instead we were treated to a spectacular sunrise as leaves heavy with dew kept the machinery busy.
“We’ve seen quite a basket case of a year in terms of different weather conditions,” says Network Rail spokesman James Crook. “A later frost, followed by a hotter and drier summer, will influence the leaf fall pattern.
“We are doing everything we can to mitigate the effects of that. We are getting very high definition weather forecasting on a station-bystation basis. That should inform us where we need to focus the leaf fall trains. And as we’ve not been able to clear quite as much vegetation as normal, that could have an effect.
“On the South Western network our leaf fall trains will be travelling the equivalent of four-and-a-half times around the world over the next few weeks.”
Our train is one of three working out of Effingham Junction. Three more are based at Totton near Southampton, all operated by Balfour Beatty on behalf of Network Rail.
By nine o’clock, the rush hour is more or less over. We arrive at Woking for the third time this morning, following a quick trip off the South Western Main Line to treat the particularly leafy route to Aldershot and back.
The crew will now park up in a siding for a break, before resuming spraying the tracks to Basingstoke, followed by Guildford. After four hours at a steady 60mph, they’re still barely halfway through the day’s task.
We leave them to their flasks of tea and make our way back to the depot.
When you start to apply the brake, you get this quietness when you’re slipping on crushed leaves. It is quite a long silence sometimes.
Lee Brown, driver