Steam Ban due to fire risk (updates)

The Nene Valley and Mid Hants have farmland and crops alongside a lot of their length. A lot of other lines just having grazing land next to the line.

 

[quote="KentYeti, post: 624613, member: 2794"] A shower reached mid Kent today around 13.45. Very short and a bit sharp.

Just as I was replacing the felt on my garden shed roof.

No rain forecast until 16.00. Nothing on the rainfall radar when I checked. So I did the roof work.

Would you ............. well believe it![/quote]

Yeah, well your "short, sharp shower hit Ruislip about an hour ago as a torrential downpour and it hasn't stopped.....................................................................

The downside to all this rain is that I am going to have to start mowing the lawn again! Which will be fun as have of it is in shade and is still green and growing, the other half WAS brown and not growing, but is now turning green again!

 

Been very wet in Worcestershire again in the last few days. Poured with rain overnight and most of this afternoon. The ground will be properly soaked through by now.

 

That's true...and?

 

I think what 5944 is inferring to is, would you want to pay the farmers compensation for loss of their crop when a wayward spark sets fire to the field?

The compensation would not be cheap and the monies that you have to pay out would be better spent on maintenance and upkeep of the infrastructure and rolling stock.

So to run boxes is the sensible option and mitigates the risk until such time as is deemed safe for steam operations to resume in consultation with the local brigade of Trumpton - they have the ultimate say!

 

Yes, we all know this but it doesn't answer my question as to any restrictions in the recent past on heritage lines, as I don't remember any.

 

Times and circumstances change, the Mid Hants for example daren't set fire to the countryside, the warning signs were there at least 6-8 weeks ago when the black five more or less free wheeling down hill set fire to the lineside.......................... also there is one farmer who's fields nearest the line always kop it when a copper top works up to Ropley, and to say he's more than a little peed off is an understatement, so better to be safe than sorry................................ the past is the past its gone, now is what matters, and lines would have been strongly advised by the fire brigade to suspend steam services until such time......... and as of tomorrow the Mid Hants is running steam again but with a box somewhere in the consist just to be on the safe side..............................................

 

It sounds like the Mid Hants has had problems in the past certainly but I'm reasonably sure it and others in the south run through mostly arable fields and at all dry times with crops and harvested are prone to combustion. I can't think of too many areas on lines such as Severn Valley and North York Moors where arable land runs near the line. They seem to run through grazing land on the whole and generally that is less volatile. A generalization I know but it probably makes things easier.

 

I don't think so - the line was closed in 1973 I believe and I've never heard of the cuttings being filled in.

 

Yes it has, and just to put things into perspective, I was told that the Saturday evening diner, just before the steam ban was imposed, ran with steam gingerly at around 5-10mph between Alresford and Ropley only - they dared go no further nor work the loco any harder......................................................... so you can see how sensitive the situation is!

 

Maybe so but if a farmer saw his best grazing go up in flames I doubt he'd be any less peeved than a farmer losing his wheat crop.

 

A few years ago said to a farmer friend of mine who has two railways running through his land on which he grows wheat that I expected he was so glad that steam engines no longer worked past his property.
"No way" he said, " it was a sad day when they stopped using them, I have to harvest my fields now instead of claiming off the railways insurance for the best crop I ever had until your engines set it on fire!"

 

And sometimes it has been said that a farmer can set fire to the crop himself to claim compensation, (read on, I am NOT inferring this has ever happened in the UK). One prime example was when SAR were running the Trans Oranje Express with steam between Kimberely and De Aar as part of their Prestige operations. On one occasion a farmer reported a lineside fire on his grazing land next to the track just after the train was scheduled to have passed. There was an actual fire.

Only that day the steam loco had failed and the train was hauled by a diesel!

 

To answer camraman, the NYMR has various "FIRECON" conditions, which involve various precautionary measures. These include diesel assistance and replacing steam with diesel between Levisham and Goathland, as well as full diesel.

The intermediate stages have been used on a number of occasions over the years but I think only once since daily operations to Whitby commenced in 2007. There have been closures due to flooding on more occasions!

I can vaguely recall other lines having to go to diesel assistance or replacement in the past - Strathspey and North Norfolk come to mind as lines where there are known areas of potential risk.

In some ways, April and May are the riskiest times as new growth has yet to come through. A long dry spell and extreme temperatures can extend this and that is basically what has happened this year.

Steven

 

All very difficult...I knew there was something I didn't like about the summer and it's not warm ale!

 

Not good news at all, thought we've seen the last of it!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-62786/Britain-set-week-heatwave.html
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/42...-hottest-day-of-the-year-is-STILL-yet-to-come

 

where do these Tory papers get this duff info from
both the met office & bbc weather quote nothing above 23C for the next 10 days for Yorkshire and maybe 27C end of next week for London