Trains go earlier to beat delays (BBC News)
 

Extra time is being added to mainline train journeys to cope with leaves on the line.

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According to a very good friend of mine, who is a train driver of some years experience, this is a major problem.
I know from what he has told me, that on numerous occasions he has had some frightening moments trying to slow an H.S.T down in a hurry due to this mulch that gets on the tracks. Evidently it gets compressed on the tracks and almost acts like a Teflon finish.
I do know that, in extreme cases, his train operator has had to get court orders to allow them to cut lineside vegetation down. If that is still the case I dont know, but in one instance he told me the drivers could not see a distant signal due to vegetation. They had to threaten a walkout to get that one resolved.
Makes you wonder if the world is wired up wrong does'nt it.
Paul.

Ladies and Gents laugh as much as you like but the leaves on the line is a serious problem,

We (other operators are available) run sandite and the RHTT to try and combat the problem but does'nt always work. It is very frightning to apply your brakes and your speedo drops to zero and you are still doing 75mph because your wheels have locked up and sliding.

Les

Hi Les G,
I do sympathise with anyone who has this to put up with, my driver friend has told me he has been terrified by some of the times a brake application does absolutely nothing.
Imagine that happening in a car when the road is icy. Well it does'nt bear thinking about with a full train of passengers.
Paul.

Northern Rail have also retimed some of their journeys from Monday 8th October until Saturday 8th December to take longer.

The services that will take longer include:

Blackpool to Manchester and beyond
Buxton to Manchester and beyond
Chester to Manchester via Altrincham
Southport to Manchester and beyond

The official reason for the journeys being retimed to take longer is the winter leaf fall pattern. However, it seems to be more a case of meeting punctuality figures.

The Northern Rail services between Blackpool and Manchester will take 2 minutes longer, while the Transpennine Express services won’t take any extra time. Does this mean that 185s aren’t affected by leaves, but 150s and 156s are?

Chester to Manchester via Altrincham trains are timetabled to take up to 8 minutes longer (4 in most cases) in the Manchester direction, but not more than 2 minutes in the Chester direction. Do they expect the leaves to only fall on one side of the track? Also, anyone who knows this line will know it goes through Delamere Forest, where I’d expect lots of leaves would fall on the track. However, between Cuddington and Mouldsworth (the stations either side of Delamere) the times remain unchanged.

Things have improved recently. Nowadays inability to see a signal counts as a signal malfunction, so a driver would fill out the infamous RT3185 form. Once that report is entered into the system NR is required to sort it out.....and pay for the delays which it caused to train running.