Keeping The Railways Clean In Winter

Many people are now aware of the 'leaf fall' season that happens in autumn when the railways have the problem of clearing leaves from the line, but it's just as bad in the winter season of January and February when snow and ice can freeze tracks and third rail conductors. So I popped down to Tonbridge West year to have a look at the work that goes on to keeping the railways running during winter months.
Watch Steve's video on leaf-fall here: • Why November is the mo...
Please note this was filmed in the first week of December 2020, when London was in Tier 2. Read how I'm filming safely during Covid-19 here: geofftech.co.uk/safe.html

[@msamour]

Hi Geoff, thank you very much for posting this. You can be proud of the quality of your short documentaries when an actual corporation invites you to film, provide some of their workers to provide an explanation of what they are doing. Can you say thanks to the PR people at British Rail if you ever come across one of them? In Canada, no company public or otherwise would ever give any regular shmuck off the street the time of day. Mind you, you are definitely not just any regular shmuck off the street. Thanks again!

[@trevorsidley7697]

Thanks Geoff, One of these trundles (yes they are sloooow and noisy - I guess the pressure pump and generator) every afternoon on the Medway Valley line at the edge of my land regular as clockwork. Now I know a little more about the train. Thank you.

[@AnthonyFrancisJones]

My two and a half year old sat on my knee whilst I was watching this and was equally enthralled! Thanks Geoff!

[@hudu]

In case anyone else was curious, 1500 bar is about 21,755 psi.

[@Kevin_Hones]

I watched this straight after watching a Map Men video. Now I can't stop thinking of their tune with the words "Hat Hair, Hat Hair, Hat Hat Hat Hair (Hair Hair)"

[@Kevin_Hones]

@@geofftech2 Fair point. Although today's was just Map Map Map Men. I wonder if the differences between episodes are encoding some incredibly important secret information? :)

[@jtsholtod.79]

@@Kevin_Hones If today’s episode taught me anything, it’s that I’m willing to bet there is a detailed Soviet decoder for this cryptic information.

[@sampointau]

Having been stuck on a train outbound from London down through Sevenoaks back in November 1985 due to a combination of leaf fall and ice, I can understand the need! They got us moving again by bringing a maintenance train that was waiting for us to pass out and up the line from a siding to clean the line's to the front of the train at the same time bringing a shunter up behind to give our train a push onto cleaned lines. Hard winter that one, drove through snow blizzard in Kent to get back down to Folkestone!!!

[@andrewpalm2103]

Thanks, Geoff. Your videos on RR infrastructure are my favorites. Cheers from Wisconsin.

[@markiangooley]

Lethal leaf-fall! But there’s also snow.

[@evanr1940]

is "the wrong kind of snow" still a thing?

[@jakeytrainspotting1241]

Good old Tonbridge West, love seeing the 73s working out of there.

[@LukeAlfordUKsteam]

We only get the 73/9s here lol.

[@thegreatwesterner9481]

It great watching geoff I mainly like watching the least used station

[@robbiemorrison7085]

These trains keep me up at night! They go right past my back garden!! 😂

[@crabcke4876]

I really want to live in a house like that lol

[@Tejvir7]

Why do you sleep in you back garden

[@callumd.4585]

Are you Selling?

[@BNStudios1]

Same here! I have 2 SWR lines in view from my bedroom window about 100m apart with the closest one about 25m away! The lines split about .5 miles before our house. Nice to look out of the window lots of the time but after 11 years the novelty has worn off slightly and they can be quite annoying with the window open...

[@robbiemorrison7085]

@@Tejvir7 No, but my room backs onto the garden

[@symy92]

Another great video, thanks Geoff. How cool that you get to go see all of the behind the scenes things. Keep up the great work!

[@Adam-mt7jd]

Just seeing the thumbnail has got me excited for this one! Love a new upload 👍🏻

[@lordmuntague]

6:52 That caught me out! There's a splash of something yellow on that loco's TOPS number that makes it look like "63736"! Thought some odd renumbering had been going on... #o.

[@beeble2003]

Presumably the number's been scratched off, rather than yellow paint splashed on top.

[@janscattergood7294]

Very technical with lots of planning involved but I bet most people don't even know they work on this all the time. Very interesting. Love learning more. Stay safe & take care. xxx

[@clickbait9313]

Hi Geoff, very interesting video ! I'm working on the same topic in France on the SNCF network. It's funny to see that almost the same trains are used to clean the rails during fall.

[@MakeItWithCalvin]

Bloody brilliant stuff and always an awesome thing to model too! Keep up the good work!

[@albertbatfinder5240]

Love these videos. Nothing political or cynical, just a look at some good-natured folk going about their engineering job helping the world turn just that bit faster on its axis.

[@troydent429]

Great video, had a giggle at the hard hat Chris had on 🤭

[@GreatSageSunWukong]

Ive been watching a lot of videos about Japanese trains lately, how they deal with snow on the bullet train lines etc, suddenly watching this is like stepping back in time 30 years.

[@ianmurray250]

Each country has their own weather and required different technologies, Britain's Railways have tried Japanese systems and have taken some on board but the UK needs are different.

[@andythebud]

Great video and insight Geoff. Thanks.

[@plumtreeworks5225]

the shunting locomotive used in the golden eye film is now at the appleby frodingham railway preservation society :)

[@shauntodd7123]

Great video Geoff and fascinating stuff

[@rbrwr]

Well, I didn't know (or maybe had forgotten) about the winter trains but if they're only needed to clean the third rail, they're a fairly parochial Southern Region (does that still exist?) thing, and I'm solidly Western. I like that he showed you the test piece full of holes to show you what the water jets could do when the train was stationary... then switched the water jets on *while the train was stationary*.

[@davidconnell1959]

My sadness at not finding a new video from Geoff yesterday has been well outmatched by finding it today! You’ll never know how much your channel means especially here in the USA.

[@GussyMate]

I get to see the much smaller scale operation on the Tyne and Wear Metro, during my sorry 5.30am commutes.

[@Willopotomas]

My livelihood is waterjet cutting of many many different materials as well as steel. We cut at around 3,500bar. If you're in the Coventry area, let me know and I'll show you how it works. So simple it'll blow your mind. :)

[@clivehulbert6083]

Great video Geoff I live in Tonbridge and the west yard used to have a proper engine shed when I was young . And there is a great mural in the back entrance on the walkway to the car park

[@stewartatkinson4179]

Fantastic video and fascinating insight.

[@meruliouslacrimens5154]

Now back in the day i used to drive the old converted two car emu unit SANDITE train, which would lay sandite ( a mixture of wallpaper paste and sand ) but you had to lay it at twenty miles an hour. We were rostered a D.O.O. turn ( Driver, Only, Operated / £9:00 bonuspayment ) and would go out and follow at a time distant a Scrubbing machine which using brushes a nd cleaning fluid washed the rail head. One night it turned out that BR messed it up and the scrubber followed me and washed off all i had laid. Another time a driver went out all night laying fresh air because the pipes were blocked. Another daytime shift i was sliding at a well known trouble spot with a signal failure at the junction ahead. Now if the signalman had cleared me to pass two signals at danger i could have laid sandite but he didn't so i could not lay across the junction which was where i was slipping but at only 15 mph because of gaps between signals. Later that day two trains spad at that junction because of slipping. This was all in the 1980s. The units don't exist any more and Network rail or Netrail or whatever they call themselves now did not exist. I think they have caused a lot of their own problems themselves by mismanagement of embankments ( by cutting down trees to eliminate leaf fall, but not understanding that trees and certain problematical shrubs like Japanese Knotweed were used to stabilise embankments, thus causing landslips). The lessening of the amount of lengthmen on the tracks and separating the running of the tracks and those that use them for profit. BR does not exist( their logo lives on ) and i retired years ago, so they have updated the equipment but the jobs the same. Who remembers the fiasco of being told , Network Southeast will not have any more problems with snow as they have bought a Snowblower fromScotrail. They berthed it at Stewarts Lane, cut holes in the shields to handle the third rail and then red faces all round because we got snow from Russia which was smaller crystals which blew into all points motors which then froze and the minister had to stand up and say "It was the WRONG TYPE OF SNOW " lots more stories here.

[@marksmallman7483]

The Goldeneye train is a couple of class 20's with some "stuff" built on the front to give it a more industrial Russian look, it isn't a snow plough as such.

[@radders261]

Fascinating!

[@michaelbruchas6663]

Very cool!

[@bentilley5412]

Geoff was not only in my town, but would have been visible from my window had i been home when he was recording, therefore we are now probably besties by proxy. Hooray!

[@gamingx5750]

Hi Geoff your videos are always good like genral

[@darkmann12]

I see these going past daily! Interesting!

[@TheTrainspotterFromTauranga]

(3:55) The engine that appeared in the Goldeneye film was a Class 20, complete with cosmetic modifications to have a streamlined / pointy end.

[@curailproductions7636]

Very cool 😎

[@SaturnCanuck]

That was great Geoff. Makes me wonder what we all do here in Canada in the winter. LOL

[@aitchpea6011]

My Dad once had a contract job on something like these. From what he told us, his job mostly consisted of reading his book and, when the timer buzzed, pushing the button to squirt onto the tracks the stuff that stopped leaves being a problem. Making sure there are no more "leaves on the line" announcements is a reading a book and pushing a button kind of job. EDIT: Sandite. I no know from this video that the stuff that got squirted is called Sandite.

[@MrGrumpygit488]

The Goldeneye locomotive was actually a modified class 20 with the engine sound dubbed over.

[@beeble2003]

Yeah. It's not actually a snow plough; just some stuff they bolted to the locomotive to make it look Russian and military and cool and it doesn't really make any operational sense.

[@CPTrains]

7:11 That Class 66 on the left is very dirty, something I often see on the back Cleaner Unit. I reckon the pressure of the water sprays the dirt onto the loco. Nice video Geoff!

[@ianmurray250]

The trains change ends at times too, making the front loco now the back one, and thus both engines get filthy.

[@DaveSouthPhoto]

It's mostly the mess that the traction modifier leaves behind. Once the RHTT clears with water it leaves a traction modifier down behind it to help with adhesion. Source: I work for NR

[@ianmurray250]

They don't water jet over points because pieces of ballast stones have been thrown up by the jets, and, in the past, these stone have become lodged in the point blades stopping the points from operating.

[@SamSitar]

that's amazing.

[@johnarkell4493]

The Bluebell Railway has a snowplough based on a Schools Tender that was a conversion by BR. Bluebell bought it for tender spares. It had a few additions for filming work but it wasn't for a Bond movie. As far as I know it pretended to be part of a WW2 German armoured train

[@azhalhalil9429]

I have one of these by mine in kings norton bloody loud but cool haha, nice one Geoff!

[@ianmurray250]

Yes, a train and a couple of MPVs at King's Norton two cover the whole of the Birmingham area and one goes down the hill to Worcester, Hereford, Oxford, Gloucester & Swindon hitting the Licky bank first thing in the morning to help other trains climb the bank first thing. The MPVs have demountable bodies and so get used for different things at other times of the year such as weed killer.

[@andrewseddon7989]

That was one of the best posts I've see in ages

[@jordylyons4648]

Awesome thanks

[@BelugasAreCool]

Nice video!

[@johnnyllooddte3415]

wowww thanks

[@douglasthompson7943]

The Golden Eye train sequence that was mentioned was filmed on the Nene Valley Railway near Peterborough and used a class 20 with a fabricated front end to create the point. Some of the railway scenes were shot at the back of British Sugar sidings in Peterborough, now removed.

[@kristinajendesen7111]

I used to love leaf fall with a 159, tested your skill. We originally only had one shot sand but then they fitted automatic sanders in step two & above on the brake. Took all the fun out of it. Sounds crazy I know but 159s were pretty good if you treated the conditions with respect and had the experience. You may have heard about it, probably 6 years ago now, a SWT Disastro (Desiro), slid over a mile through 2 red signals. Don't like those bloody things especially when an MPV has gone in the opposite direction and the overspray has made your line wet. I used to love the sound of silence. No WSP on a slammer and if it started to slide it was just a silent glide until you could make the brakes bite.

[@greatportlandstreetmodelra6513]

The train from golden eye was actually a class 20. you can see the headboard in the movie.

[@Nathan_A_RF]

I believe the train in Goldeneye had a Class 20 with bits bolted onto it

[@crabcke4876]

I think your correct I just made out the headcode box thing in a picture

[@undefinedfunction]

And it was filmed on the Nene Valley Railway

[@WaltTFB]

20 188. It was on the Severn Valley Railway for a while, still in black from the film.

[@ianmurray250]

Mostly wooden bits added to the class 20 & two Mk1 coaches to make them look Russian, but you only have to hear the film soundtrack to know it's a class 20. The film also used models and I think the model of the class 20 can be seen in the film museum in London.

[@journeysofjames1116]

What they're doing is quite smart

[@mrhaggit]

Very interesting video

[@MrBnsftrain]

That snowplow car is quite unusual compared to those in America. In America, there's a cab for a crew member to see what's ahead. 1500 Bar is about 21,700 psi, 108 times the pressure of a typical steam locomotive's boiler

[@kasiutek1974]

Very interesting 👍

[@eat_shi_n_die]

Great video! Would be cool to get more info about the trains themselves!

[@mattredman98]

I think Røde Wireless GO owe @GeoffMarshall a sponsorship! Great work.

[@spiccybaby]

Leaf fall was much less of a problem back in the days of steam, but then lineside fires were the issue!

[@paulefc1971]

One of the biggest issues now are lineside trees that don’t belong to Network Rail, hence they can’t clear the vegetation, add to that all of the preservation orders that prevent tree felling

[@thomasdeeley2901]

I was whatching these on the Shenfeild - Southend Victoria line, only it was usually either a pair of 37s or 57s. and unfortunately they stopped running just a few days before you did your video on the new 720s.

[@Jimyjames73]

Very cool 🙂🚂🚂🚂

[@davidearl4022]

Who knew keeping on track was so perilous. Bond just needs to carry a high-power waterjet with him. I always have trouble saying Kent and Sussex too.

[@collectivelyimprovingtrans2460]

Well he's back on Southeastern.

[@Channel-ij5px]

We had DRS 37s in South Yorkshire for 2020s season

[@I_am_nameless_]

Geoff, would you ever do a video on Rail Grinding?

[@CoolTransport]

I Saw that train near London Victoria!

[@RWJP]

The Goldeneye train was actually a Class 20, D8188 to be specific.

[@Pikachufan82]

Geoff, are you planning on making a video about the Class 507/8s which are leaving the Mersey Rail network soon? It would be great to see a video about them before they go forever

[@punkemoandy]

These trains are often parked in the sidings just before Eastbourne station when not in use.

[@StreuB1]

1500bar = 22,000psi for my fellow Americans. :-)

[@danielferris7960]

That makes more sense to this Brit too.

[@tinplategeek1058]

So 700 times the pressure in my car tyre.

[@AlexaMG35]

Just down the road from where I come from! 😅

[@gillywild]

2:14 Ghostbusters Ghost trap!

[@groupcaptainbonzo]

Great vid. A bit from the back room ....

[@HenrysAdventures]

When the class 73s work the rail head treatment trains on the 3rd rail network do they do it on diesel or electric power?

[@beeble2003]

Good question. They generally use electric power when it's available but do they have to turn off the third-rail when they're treating it? I guess probably they do, so the trains run on diesel power. Just a guess, though.

[@Lighting_Desk]

Can you please cover the pacer and 125 situation? Sad to see them go.

[@djviper79]

@2.14, does someone want to tell the guy his hard hat has been put together backwards? The outer hat is the correct way round however the internal spider has been fitted backwards, the adjustable bit across his forid should be at the back and the black headband at the front!

[@MemesnShet]

3:39 getting some Kabaneri vibes from this one

[@davidsummer8631]

I used to work in a warehouse that ran onto the back of the railway coming into Clapham Junction and one day a strange looking train with no markings slowly drove past and about a year later I went to cinema to see Goldeneye and there in the film was the same train

[@JasperJanssen]

The goldeneye train doesn’t look too dissimilar to some Cold War Soviet military trains, which is after all what it’s portraying. They were into making menacing military trains look like menacing military trains.

[@callumhoward2663]

Been in a 73 cab for a ride as well

[@skendler5]

Sam didn’t invite me into a cab! Rude! 😂

[@trimley]

Rail replacement train video next please Geoff 🙏

[@fumthings]

has Geoff change the end slide so it no longer twinkles? or was that just an illusion all along and the new font just doesnt do the illusion? the blue and purple thing i mean...

[@martinsands7379]

The Goldeneye Lcomotive was a modified ex RFS Channel tunnel Class 20

[@ianmurray250]

And owned by Pete Waterman

[@jims1812]

I'm grateful to the people who maintain the railways.I am bit concerned they use so much glycol antifreeze as I've read it kills animals and takes a while to degrade in soil and water

[@gengardanny607]

i saw 2 RHTTs a HST test and a MPV in the same day and the day later saw the MPV come back down the line

[@MrGreatplum]

Great stuff - I know that in the 90s they were still using snow ploughs that were converted from Schools class tenders - I assume they have been scrapped now?

[@kristinajendesen7111]

We had a couple at Eastleigh when I started on BR back in 1987 at Bournemouth. I believe they have been used in preservation when locos have been rebuilt with their tenders.

[@aleronhawk]

I believe water jets still used to cut steel and such. It even dates back to maybe 19th, early 20th century? Wasn’t plates for the titanic were also cut with high pressure water? The sugar cane factory my dad used to work to had a massive kettle for processing the sugar and he told me the plate was cut using water since 1920s or so.

[@anthonyroyster9288]

There is no December 2020 Tube maps on eBay. Living 188 miles away doesn't make it easier as well.

[@cook13snip3aa]

So train fans, had to pass through Leicester Station and saw an interesting collection of testing and measurement cars that weren't the traditional banana HST set and were old Virgin and other mk3 cars. Anyone able to identify what they are, or what they're used for now a'days? :)

[@edwardbyard6540]

Geoff you need to visit the waterjet channel on youtube - they cut stuff with water for fun.

[@johnstilljohn3181]

Very cool. Clearly a messy but very necessary job...

[@JaffaGaffa]

A Proper Infrastructure Video!!!! #yey

[@aidanmcgregor8789]

Wow, makes me wonder how we do this here in canada with all the snow we get.

[@ala0284]

Well, you certainly have a lot less rail lines than us, and much less frequently travelled. So I imagine they don’t quite get the intensity of service these lines do

[@kattkatt744]

For long distance trains each gets mounted with their own snow plough for the winter in addition the maintenance trains that run the lines. For short busy lines they run the maintenance trains in between the normal services. I also think a lot of the trains in Canada still run diesel so you do not need the third rail cleaning for a lot of lines.

[@TheOwenMajor]

We have much larger blocks than in Europe and in NA our signaling systems show the clearance for multiple blocks ahead. In short, NA is used to stopping distances measured in miles.

[@TheOwenMajor]

@@ala0284 Canada actually has about the same length of track as the UK, and we actually have more total traffic then the UK, but it's in a much different form. Fast-moving passenger trains that stop regularly have completely different needs then a 4km long freight train moving at 40 mph.

[@aidanmcgregor8789]

@@ala0284 Well that’s not 100% true. We have tons of huge freight trains here in Canada, so we need to have the rails cleared of snow constantly. Although i do imagine that some of the time when there’s not a lot of snow that falls (maybe 10-15cm) the trains clear it out of the way themselves. We also do have some passenger lines that are cleared too.

[@jgodfrey546]

Very interesting! Question from across the pond: you, Chris, and the gent who showed you the Class 73 cab all have black things clipped to your PPE. What purpose does it serve...?

[@JBLewis]

The little black square? That's the wireless mike for Geoff's recording. It's a Rode Wireless Go.

[@jgodfrey546]

@@JBLewis Thx much!

[@TheHambletonbiker]

3:10 is wrong, 1500 bar water doesn't cut steel, neither does 2800 bar water which I use daily to cut concrete. To start cutting any still you have to add garnet

[@Tejvir7]

They are not wrong you are wrong

[@TheHambletonbiker]

@@Tejvir7 How am I wrong, to make cuts like that you have to use an abrasive. Would you like me to upload some abrasive waterjet cutting tomorrow on my channel?

[@TheOwenMajor]

A bit of a semantic argument...

[@caw25sha]

@@TheOwenMajor I suspect the truth is that water on it's own will cut concrete or steel, but if they actually want to do so they add an abrasive to speed up the process. I have used a bog standard domestic pressure washer and it does start to wear away at paving slabs if you hold it in the same place too long. I am sure I could cut one in half with enough patience. (At the risk of a gigantic water bill!)

[@mohammadishaque1553]

Thanks milna ke liya

[@anthonydefreitas6006]

5:49 anyone want to buy a train? This one comes with full service history.