Remember though that depending where it is the same vegetation prevents landslips - another thing NR have had a severe kicking about in the past 12 - 24 months.
It depends on the type of tree and the type of planting. If it's a properly planned and maintained woodland, perhaps put in as part of a housing estate or other work, they're generally good for land stabilisation and slope engineering purposes.
If it's random seeds blown on the wind and landing on one of the many embankments which were either maintained by British Railways or prone to linespeed fires during the steam train period, they tend to have shallow, widespread root systems, they do nothing to stabilise slopes, and have a bloody annoying tendency to fall over and break things, like our nice OLE.
And I know I'm evil, but I take great delight in witnessing home owners endlessly complaining about things the railway is doing next to their home, my favourite story is the home owners who complained their relatively new build house had been ruined by our electrification works (NW Phase 1, IIRC) only for us to find the plans still on the planning system and discover the only window in their house which had a view over the railway line was the bathroom window, which was frosted.
People will try anything on in the hope of a bit of compensation, or things like triple glazed windows which bumps up the value of their house.
