Leaves in shades of burgundy and auburn are one of our favourite things about autumn (we at Time Out even have a list of the best places to see them). They’re beautiful to look at and incredibly satisfying to frolic through but, it turns out, they’re not fun for everyone.
Fallen foliage at this time of year can ‘pose a serious threat’ to Britain’s railways, creating a slippery layer on the line, affecting train braking, interfering with signal systems and causing delays. But have no fear, the leaf busting trains are here! And Network Rail wants your help to name one of them.
Armed with high-pressure jets, the machines blast soggy leaf mulch off the tracks from over 13 million trees on and next to the railways across the country. Network Rail hails leaf busters as the ‘unsung heroes’ of the tracks.
More than 1,300 names were sent in for consideration for one of the new members of the leaf-busting fleet, with ‘Britney Clears’, ‘Buster Grimes’, ‘Don’t Stop De-Leafing’, and ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Anti-Leaf Machiney’ getting special mentions from judges.
Now the names have been whittled down to just four: Ctrl Alt De-leaf, Leaf-Fall Weapon, Pulp Friction and The Autumn Avenger. You have until October 18 to vote for your favourite and the winning name will be announced on October 24.
Lisa Angus, Network Rail’s seasonal delivery director, said: ‘Though this competition is just a way of bringing some light-hearted ‘re-leaf’ this autumn, it’s been great to see a growing awareness of the serious problems leaves on the line can pose to the railway, both here and across the world, and an appreciation of the mammoth task we, as a rail industry, undertake each year to keep passengers moving through the season.’
Train travel with Time Out
Loco for locomotives? In other recent news from our railways, new trains could be coming to northeast England, a huge £1 billion project will make train journeys faster between England and Wales, this railway operator was ranked the best in Britain and Greenpeace introduced the idea of a climate-friendly travel pass
Did you see that Britain’s tallest bird has just fledged in Cambridgeshire for the first time in 400 years?
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