Littering/ waste along our railways

[underbank]

There's a newish bicycle dumped on my local line. Looks like someone chucked it off the bridge, extremely dangerous

More likely to be a stolen bike dumped rather than fly-tipping, so completely different to mere littering.

 

[E_Reeves]

More likely to be a stolen bike dumped rather than fly-tipping, so completely different to mere littering.

Possibly... it had no wheels, just the frame

 

[sarahj]

One of our turn-around sidings has many bottles of, err lucozade lying around. After we went to 313's they suddenly turned up. Don't agree with it myself, but perhaps that just because I cannot use a bottle.
Certain places are worse than others and some families do treat the lineside as a dumping ground. But then compare it to the pots, grinding discs, scrap bits of track, left lying around. The tracks at Brighton station are a disgrace as well. A covered terminus with a lack of wind blowing, the tracks are just YAK. Keeps the local rats happy and saves them nibbling on signal cables.

 

[atraindriver]

<deleted>

 

[Steve Bray]

I've lost count of the number of footballs there are on railway embankments. Between Dorking West and Deepdene, there must be at least two dozen

 

[iphone76]

Over the last month or two on our route in East London someone has started throwing empty 2 litre soft drink bottles over their back garden. There must be about 40 or so there now of various brands. I don't understand how it can be easier to walk the length of their garden to dispose of them rather than just put them in the recycling or dustbin. The mind boggles.

 

[6Gman]

Over the last month or two on our route in East London someone has started throwing empty 2 litre soft drink bottles over their back garden. There must be about 40 or so there now of various brands. I don't understand how it can be easier to walk the length of their garden to dispose of them rather than just put them in the recycling or dustbin. The mind boggles.

When I was a child - in the days of home delivery of milk in bottles - our next door neighbours, rather than leave empties for the milkman, used to smash them up, dig a hole in the garden, and bury the glass.

Nowt so queer as folk!

 

[anti-pacer]

The line between Leeds and Huddersfield is shocking, especially around Batley and Deighton. I've stopped looking out of the window on the train to work.

I've spent a lot of time in London recently and some lines down there aren't so cracking.

Sheffield station on platform 5 has track beds that are covered in litter, yet the other platforms seem clean(ish).

 

[The Box Photter]

The thing I notice most is how much abandoned rail is littering the side of the track. I'm not just talking about the odd scrap a couple of feet long, but great lengths, often in multiple "bundles". Does NR have any policy on removing and recycling all this scrap steel? There must be £millions worth of steel just lying there rusting.

I assume that it isn't removed nefariously by scrap metal thieves because it's too bloody heavy and access is tricky, but surely NR has the capability of lifting and removing the track since they presumably laid the new track it replaced. Has a NR bean counter somewhere decided that the likely cost of recovery will exceed its value?

 

[221129]

The thing I notice most is how much abandoned rail is littering the side of the track. I'm not just talking about the odd scrap a couple of feet long, but great lengths, often in multiple "bundles". Does NR have any policy on removing and recycling all this scrap steel? There must be £millions worth of steel just lying there rusting.

I assume that it isn't removed nefariously by scrap metal thieves because it's too bloody heavy and access is tricky, but surely NR has the capability of lifting and removing the track since they presumably laid the new track it replaced. Has a NR bean counter somewhere decided that the likely cost of recovery will exceed its value?

A lot of it isn't actually scrap at all...

 

[Llama]

One place that is particularly bad that only drivers really see, is Ashburys to Philips Park - you could furnish a whole street with all the stuff lobbed over the fences on one stretch.

 

[Ash Bridge]

One place that is particularly bad that only drivers really see, is Ashburys to Philips Park - you could furnish a whole street with all the stuff lobbed over the fences on one stretch.

It certainly sounds as if that line has to contend with some delightful neighbours!

 

[Carlisle]

When I was a child - in the days of home delivery of milk in bottles - our next door neighbours, rather than leave empties for the milkman, used to smash them up, dig a hole in the garden, and bury the glass.

In those days I’d have thought the milkman would have eventually stopped delivering to customers that never returned any empties

 

[Bald Rick]

One of our turn-around sidings has many bottles of, err lucozade lying around. After we went to 313's they suddenly turned up. Don't agree with it myself, but perhaps that just because I cannot use a bottle.
Certain places are worse than others and some families do treat the lineside as a dumping ground. But then compare it to the pots, grinding discs, scrap bits of track, left lying around. The tracks at Brighton station are a disgrace as well. A covered terminus with a lack of wind blowing, the tracks are just YAK. Keeps the local rats happy and saves them nibbling on signal cables.

Some years ago, I took some senior industry persons, new to the industry, to a large station that has a mix of through trains and terminating trains, with the terminating trains using certain platforms only. The top brass pointed to a collection of plastic bottles in the 6 foot adjacent to a track used by terminating trains . “Look at that rubbish” they said, pointing at it, “how does that all collect there”. I could see an approaching train that was due to terminate, so simply responded with “see this train, have a guess where the cab window will stop”. It was quite fun to see their emotions go from outright disbelief to extreme annoyance via bemusement, realisation and shock when the train came to a stand!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The line between Leeds and Huddersfield is shocking, especially around Batley and Deighton. I've stopped looking out of the window on the train to work.

I've spent a lot of time in London recently and some lines down there aren't so cracking.

Sheffield station on platform 5 has track beds that are covered in litter, yet the other platforms seem clean(ish).

I think round here, with the pennine winds, cuttings seem to collect all the detritus from the surrounding area. The two areas you mention suffer from this, particularly the stretch between Dewsbury and Batley. The approaches to Bradford Interchange seem to be a hotspot too, along with the stretch west of Huddersfield through Milnsbridge and Golcar.

 

[The Lad]

What I don't understand is how some folk seem to chuck rubbish straight outside their own gardens onto the railway, it is obvious where it has come from.

 

[al78]

I have a circuit of cycle track that I walk daily with my dogs, around a mile stretch of the ex-railway line between Bedford & Sandy in fact which is now Sustains R51 and tarmac. I can easily fill a black bag every couple of weeks and the regular replenishment of waste is discarded by fellow walkers, cyclists and most recently the joggers are discarding their foil gel packs of energy juice (and single use water bottles) that prevents them competing their run otherwise! Then there are the general suppliers of beer cans and bottles, some of which are discarded by fishermen but not in all cases. There are four red dog-poo bins on the route but the bags still arrive in the bushes.
You are correct though in that if nobody cares and wants to pick anything they don't like up, then after a few years it would look appalling. Maybe it's just me and the human race is evolving more-and-more to love living in their own ****?

It is not evolution, evolution acts over a much longer timescale that the claimed 40 years things have been getting worse. The problem is (has always been) that there is a subset of the population that don't give a **** about externalised costs, so taking the most convenient action and getting away with it is fair game, no matter what the costs dumped elsewhere. There also seems to be an increasing awareness that often you can get away with minor wrongdoings because there is hardly any authority around with the power to do anything about it, and anyone can choose to ignore another member of the public without consequence, because ordinary members of the public have no power over anyone else (think "You can't tell me what to do, you're not my dad"). The UK has high population density in the big cities, so it doesn't take much of a subset of morally dead to start the decline of an area. Lack of consequence gives people power, which is one reason why some will be less civilised and more abusive online compared to face-to face, because no-one is physically there to smash their face in.

 

[Bald Rick]

It is not evolution, evolution acts over a much longer timescale that the claimed 40 years things have been getting worse. The problem is (has always been) that there is a subset of the population that don't give a **** about externalised costs, so taking the most convenient action and getting away with it is fair game, no matter what the costs dumped elsewhere. There also seems to be an increasing awareness that often you can get away with minor wrongdoings because there is hardly any authority around with the power to do anything about it, and anyone can choose to ignore another member of the public without consequence, because ordinary members of the public have no power over anyone else (think "You can't tell me what to do, you're not my dad"). The UK has high population density in the big cities, so it doesn't take much of a subset of morally dead to start the decline of an area. Lack of consequence gives people power, which is one reason why some will be less civilised and more abusive online compared to face-to face, because no-one is physically there to smash their face in.

Agreed. It’s not just the railway though. The lane I live on is regularly and frequently littered - I pick up a bin bag full of rubbish every month from a hundred yard stretch. I’m afraid to say it is a small subset of the population, and they mostly seem to be tradesmen in vans. That’s not to say that all trademen in vans chuck stuff out of their windows, but some clearly do. I caught one doing it last week, and he was over 30 miles from home and clearly felt it acceptable to stop his van to dispose the remains of his Big Mac meal outside my house. I’m afraid I said some words that are not considered polite in mixed company.

 

[philthetube]

The thing I notice most is how much abandoned rail is littering the side of the track. I'm not just talking about the odd scrap a couple of feet long, but great lengths, often in multiple "bundles". Does NR have any policy on removing and recycling all this scrap steel? There must be £millions worth of steel just lying there rusting.

I assume that it isn't removed nefariously by scrap metal thieves because it's too bloody heavy and access is tricky, but surely NR has the capability of lifting and removing the track since they presumably laid the new track it replaced. Has a NR bean counter somewhere decided that the likely cost of recovery will exceed its value?

This is genrally not scrap, bundles will be waiting for a possession in order to bu used replacing rail, also there are spares lying around in case of damage to track, particularly around points.

When track replacement occurs track old track is almost always removed at the time the work is done, for small jobs or emergency work it may be left by the track side for a while before removal.

 

[Ken H]

I went to a Cumbran village yesterday. there was an old dear with a picky up stick finding minuscule bits of litter and putting it in a bag. The place was pristine. In the cities, no-one does that.

 

[al78]

I went to a Cumbran village yesterday. there was an old dear with a picky up stick finding minuscule bits of litter and putting it in a bag. The place was pristine. In the cities, no-one does that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else's_problem

 

[Llanigraham]

I went to a Cumbran village yesterday. there was an old dear with a picky up stick finding minuscule bits of litter and putting it in a bag. The place was pristine. In the cities, no-one does that.

Funny but I often seem to see invitations and reports about Community Litter Picks in all sorts of places, from cities to rural communities.
I can assure you that they do happen.
And I haven't included the numerous beach, river and canal cleans that occur.

 

[jfowkes]

I was on the MML yesterday - on the outskirts of Wellingborough to the north there's a recycling/waste centre right by the line. The strong wind had blown a large quantity of waste over the fence and down the embankment, almost onto the tracks. I guess if it was light enough to be picked up by the wind it wouldn't have done any harm to a train, but some pieces were large enough to seriously obscure a driver's view if they happened to catch onto the wipers or something.