leytongabriel
Member
- Joined
- 27 Jan 2013
- Messages
- 591
SE was certainly falling apart this morning. At London Bridge they were telling us about signalling problems, at New Cross it was congestion ahead, at Hither Green it was a faulty train in front, at Orpington an obstruction and at Tonbridge delays were reported to be due to a lineside fire. Not bad for one morning on one train!
Coming back I was on a Hastings train that ran into a bit of a tree north of Battle. Have to say the train crew were great - hats off to the guys. Took about 5 hours to Tonbridge ( including replacement bus) where there was then another 50m wait for a connecting train to London.
But I couldn't help noticing that it seemed to be due to poor Network Rail management of the site. The trees at the top of the embankment had been cut down or coppiced a long time ago and had regrown very tall spindly stems hanging over the embankment just waiting to be blown down. Cutting down trees in this way demands that they are cut again at regular intervals . Otherwise you get tall straggly vunerable stems as happened here.
Coming back I was on a Hastings train that ran into a bit of a tree north of Battle. Have to say the train crew were great - hats off to the guys. Took about 5 hours to Tonbridge ( including replacement bus) where there was then another 50m wait for a connecting train to London.
But I couldn't help noticing that it seemed to be due to poor Network Rail management of the site. The trees at the top of the embankment had been cut down or coppiced a long time ago and had regrown very tall spindly stems hanging over the embankment just waiting to be blown down. Cutting down trees in this way demands that they are cut again at regular intervals . Otherwise you get tall straggly vunerable stems as happened here.