Repairs to railway bridges will bring increased traffic to Bungo roundabout

Network Rail has commenced works to strengthen Nithsdale Road bridge (at Susie’s shop) to meet European directives on bridge safety standards.

Residents adjacent to the bridge were informed by letter that the current works would take up to a month to complete (from 23 July 2005) and take place at night!

When complete, the bridge will be reopened to traffic to travel in two lanes, each way. The strengthening of the bridge is to allow for the year-long closure and reconstruction of Titwood Bridge at Crossmyloof station.

Please note that Network rail is committed to providing a pedestrian – cycle – wheelchair access bridge at Titwood Road for the duration of the works. Given that Titwood Road serves as an access to the M77-M8 and more generally to Shawlands and the Southside-including major games and events at Hampden-this will inevitably see a large volume of diverted traffic using Nithsdale Road Bridge.

Any thoughts or concerns about this and its impact on access to and from Strathbungo, email the website editor.

8 April 2005
Replanting scheme to start

Cllr Malcolm Cunning says replanting on the Moray Place side of the railway is to start within the next week or so.

The understanding is that Network Rail contractors will be planting some 600 mixed species plants, mainly hedge-like plants such as hawthorn and holly. Glasgow City Aboroculturalist Gerry Gillespie met on site last week with Phil Jones, the Network Rail operative, to discuss and agree the process.

Glasgow Tree Lovers Society will be billed directly for their contribution to that process, Malcolm said.

He also noted that issues to do with litter on the trackside and vegetation encroaching on Moray Place through the railings are still to be dealt with.

28 February 2005
According to Councillor Malcolm Cunning, the situation is as follows:

• Network Rail and Glasgow City Council (Land Services) have still to schedule a site visit with a view to agreeing a replanting scheme.
• Malcolm has got the Depute Director of Land Services (Scott Rodgers) to write to NR to encourage them to meet with the Council to take the whole issue forward and asked the Head of Parks (Kenneth Boyle) to indicate what plant material the Council currently has.
• £500 has been secured by GCC to contribute to the purchase of trees. It is not known how much NR will contribute nor, at this stage, what type of trees (scale, species etc) will be planted and when.
• Further details – who will undertake the work etc – will follow.
• It is only the Moray Place side that is currently being considered.

Strathbungo Society Chair Kevin Kane has reiterated the point that consultation is expected and it would be useful for the Council and the Society to take the lead on this once a design or planting ideas are agreed by GCC and NR.The planting season extends only to the end March/early April so something must be agreed soon or the opportunity will be lost.

Monday, 24th January
Network Rail reaches agreement with the owner at 22 Moray Place that it will remove the lime tree from her land — with her agreement. (See ””Lone Ranger”” photo in the Strathbungo Today gallery)
Network Rail also confirms its approach to replanting in an email to her. This applies to land owned by Network Rail — not by individuals.
In September Network Rail supplied the Council with a list of species and recommended planting distances. The rail authority is prepared to examine any detailed proposals coming out of discussion on this between Glasgow City Council, the Glasgow Tree Lovers Society and the Strathbungo Society. Any replanting will be done by Network Rail and owned by it.

Monday, 17th January
With Moray Place still closed between Regent Park and Queen Square, workmen move beyond the next (disputed) block and start in the Marywood Square to Vennard Gardens stretch.

Saturday, 15th January
Water main goes boom in Moray Place – coincidentally (?) at the very spot where Network Rail””s huge crane was stationed the last couple of days.

Friday afternoon, 14th January
We understand that owners at 22 Moray Place have informed Network Rail that their title deeds indicate that the lime tree directly across from them is on their property and cannot be removed without their permission. Network Rail have apparently instructed their contractors to leave this tree until ownership is clarified.

Friday morning, 14th January
Network Rail contractors have now moved into Moray Place between Queen Square and Marywood Square, beginning with the chestnut tree at the junction of Queen Square.
Some poor person has had his (her) Escort clamped and lifted. Did residents get notification that work was to begin in their block this morning?

4pm: Thursday, 13th January
All mature trees on the trackside between Regent Park Square and Queen Square are gone.

10am: Thursday, 13th January
Felling has begun on the block between Regent Park Square and Queen Square.

3pm: Wednesday,12th January
The beech tree gone, they have now started on the ash beside it.

9.30am: Wednesday,12th January
Network Rail contractors are back to resume their work. Gale force winds may do the job for them.
4pm: Tuesday, 11th January
Sunset, and as contractors knocked off, the lovely old beech tree that lived for 120 years in Moray Place has been destroyed in a single day.

2.30pm: Tuesday, 11th January
They are back at it … maybe earlier was just a lunch break?
1pm: Tuesday, 11th January
Felling suspended due to gale, thus proving it is indeed an ill wind that blows no good!
9am: Tuesday,11th January
Network Rail contractors moved in early this morning to begin felling what we fear will be 46 of the 49 mature trees that line the Moray Place trackside.
See photos on the Strathbungo Today gallery (at right)
With typical sensitivity, they chose to start with the 120 year old beech tree at the pedestrian footbridge, which local children decorated on Sunday with ribbons, poems, wishes and prayers.
The location of the beech is also causing major chaos with traffic management, as both sections of Moray Place are now cordoned off between Nithsdale Road and Queen Square. (Did no one explain to them that Strathbungo has a one-way system?)
Despite the road closure notices, they have not given residents an indication as to when to move their cars thus a number of cars are still parked in the affected sections of Moray Place.
Apparently even the Royal Mail must bow to the superior authority of Network Rail as they have blocked access to the post distribution box beside the footbridge and this morning the van had to wait for our postman Les to arrive to hand over his bag personally.
MORE NEWS AS IT HAPPENS!

Railway Bridge
Sunday, 9 January, 2.30pm
In advance of Network Rail starting work on Monday on the Moray Place trackside, the Strathbungo Society is organising a short farewell ceremony on Sunday afternoon.

The felling will take out approximately 46 of the 49 mature trees that line Moray Place, including the beautiful old beech tree at the pedestrian footbridge where we will hold the event. Before it is destroyed, we intend to dress the beech tree (where it overhangs the road) in manner similar to a prayer tree so bring along your wishes written on paper, ribbons or other articles. We also hope to serve mulled wine.

Do come along for a half hour or so and encourage as many of your family, friends and neighbours as you can to join us.

There will probably be a final show of strength to greet the contractors arriving on the morning of the 10th January at 9.30 am–do come along if you can spare 10 minutes.

Network Rail’s chainsaws are coming back to Strathbungo on 10 January, but after five months of pressure by local residents, our elected representatives and the Glasgow City Council, it will perhaps not be as much of a “massacre” as first feared.
“In any case, we have won important concessions as regards a replanting scheme,” says Strathbungo Cllr Malcolm Cunning.
Since the major public protest led by the Strathbungo Society during August and September, including nightly vigils at the railway bridge, things have gone somewhat quiet on the trackside, although there’s been a good bit of manoeuvring behind the scenes.
At the height of the protest in mid September, it apparently dawned on someone at NR that they would require a road closure to take out the mature trees along Moray Place– an administrative process which normally takes six weeks and the Council was in no mood to fast track their application.
Meanwhile, autumn arrived, leaves fell and temperatures dropped, allowing a cooling off period in which more productive negotiations could begin.
At a meeting on 6 December, officials from Glasgow Land Services told Network Rail that they would be willing to coordinate a replanting scheme and find funding through various sources to allow for a more comprehensive and sympathetic scheme than NR had been planning.
NR agreed to that proposal and, importantly, also agreed to allow Gerry Gillespie, the Council’s Arboriculturalist, to draw up a replanting scheme based on NR’s list of acceptable species. He will do this in consultation with both the Strathbungo Society and Glasgow Tree Preservation Society.
So the upshot is, as Malcolm puts it, “Network Rail are getting what they wanted-that is, most of the mature trees will be coming down. However, there will now be a sensible replanting scheme that takes into consideration the long-term good of the conservation area and the wishes of local residents. It will obviously take some time to mature, but the green corridor will be preserved.”

What happens next?

The road closure order on Moray Place comes into effect on Monday, 10 January.
Work is expected to start right away, beginning at 1-10 Moray Place and proceeding in block long segments over the next fortnight.
Land Services will provide a traffic management plan so that closure of various blocks will cause as little disruption and/or risk as possible.
As expected, works will include removal of the majority of the mature trees.
The 120-year-old beech tree at the railway bridge has major structural faults and cannot be saved. Because it’s located at a junction, this will also have implications for traffic management while felling is underway.
NR are aware of their responsibility for eradicating a large patch of highly-invasive Japanese knotweed on the Darnley Road side of the tracks.
It is hoped that the first phase of the replanting scheme can be carried out during the dormant period before March. The remainder will have to wait for next November.
NR also have to address the issue of railings where these have been removed or damaged.

“We have been reassured that, unlike trees, fencing will come under Council planning control for the conservation area so we should not have to worry about an inappropriate fence going up,” Malcolm said.
However, as we say, watch this space!

So did we win or lose?

The Strathbungo Society has taken a reasonable approach throughout the protest, recognising the genuine safety issues caused by leaves on the lines and also the dire condition of many of the trees after years of neglect by Network Rail and its predecessor Railtrack.
It might have been convenient to dismiss local residents as “tree huggers”, but nobody believed that except Network Rail.
Says Strathbungo Chairman Kevin Kane: “When it comes to health and safety issues, the odds are always stacked very heavily in NR’s favour. They did not have to reveal their assessment to us, they were not liable to planning consent even for the conservation area and the Council had little leverage.
“In the face of what seemed to be an unstoppable force, we were able to commission an independent tree survey and pull together a pretty effective campaign of publicity and peaceful protest. And it wasn’t just the usual suspects-it’s amazing how many new people we met over the late summer and early autumn and we hope they will continue to work with us for the good of the community.
“We also got a lot of help from our elected officials-Malcolm Cunning in particular, and also Mohammad Sarwar MP, Cllr Stephen Currren, Gordon Jackson MSP. As a matter of fact we had cross party support from Bashir Ahmed, Nicola Sturgeon, Rosie Kane, Alan Rodger, the Greens and the Lib Dems-it got pretty crowded out there on that railway bridge!”
The truth is, we will never know what might have happened if we had not raised our protest although communities all over Britain-notably Burnside, during the summer-have learned the hard way about Network Rail’s heavy-handed approach to “vegetation management”.The trackside might have been just as devastated as Blairbeth Road (see the Burnside pictures in our gallery).
Says Kevin: ‘I think it’s going to be much better than it would have been otherwise. The green corridor is going to be designed and replanted so we won’t be left with just the random vegetation that grew up over years of neglect. We also brought people together to meet and discuss an important local issue – that’s popular, neighbourhood-style democracy!’
Thanks to all who turned out to watch, witness and question what Network Rail were doing. And remember, the chainsaws come back on 10 January so the danger is by no means over yet.

London Underground has an enlightened policy of balancing safety issues with environmental protection. As you will read here in this piece from the Tube’s website, Network Rail’s arrogant clear cutting policy is not the only way -indeed, it may cause more problems than it solves.

TAKE A BOUGH

Preparing for leaf fall
They provide a sound buffer between trains and neighbouring properties, they encourage wildlife, and their roots keep embankments in place by helping to stop water erosion.
But – as many people know – trees also have leaves. And leaves can cause lots of problems for trains.
The time of ‘leaf fall’ comes every autumn. It may not sound dangerous, but as any commuter knows, leaves can – and do – stop trains in their tracks. When leaves fall onto the track, they get crushed by passing trains.
The squashed leaves then form a slippery and treacherous film that means the train wheels can’t grip the tracks properly.
The obvious solution would be to cut down all the trees and bushes that might cause trouble. But as IBCV Section Track Manager for Environment Michael Palmer points out, good management of the vegetation alongside the tracks on the Central Line means that trains and trees can co-exist.
“We spray weedkiller in a 2 metre band either side of the tracks,” he says. “We also inspect and remove diseased trees and dead branches, and regularly prune the trees to thin the canopy.
“If we take any trees away, we take care to replant trees that don’t shed as many leaves, or ones that shed the kind of leaves that don’t give us a problem.”
‘Good’ trees include the evergreen oak (because it doesn’t shed its leaves at all) and the hornbeam (the canopy grows close to the trunk and limits the area into which leaves fall).
Shrubs such as broom, laveteria, berberis, laurels and holly can also be ideal, as they only grow to around six feet and don’t shed their leaves.
As well as planting and pruning, Michael’s team also treats the tracks with a substance known as Sandite, which aids the grip of wheels.
Sandite is a thick gel containing grains of sand, which covers the rails and provides friction for the wheels.
But there’s more to tree management than dealing with leaves. Michael’s team of thirteen prunes and maintains trees and bushes all year round along the Central Line.
As it’s London’s longest Tube line, that’s 74km, or 46 miles to deal with.
The team also repairs fences, kills weeds, clears platform areas of vegetation (and snow in winter), and also clears signals, drains, ditches and airshafts.
Michael needs to keep one eye on the smooth running of the trains, whilst keeping the other firmly on his responsibility for wildlife. “We will always wait for the young of birds or squirrels to leave nests before we remove branches or cut down whole trees,” he says. “People love them or hate them, trees are a fact of Tube life.
“Some people love trees, some hate them; some of the Line’s neighbours want us to do away with the trees, others are very passionately defensive of them.
We have inherited some beautiful trees – oak and ash and beech. We check them all out regularly, and make sure they are kept healthy, and thinned out so they don’t drop too many leaves – either on the track, or in neighbouring gardens.”
And looking after the trackside vegetation properly has brought other dividends. “We have a good relationship with our neighbours now,” says Michael.
“It’s because we make an effort to keep the trees in a manageable -and managed -state.”
Leaves on the line
Many people believe the Tube is the only railway which suffers delays every autumn caused by falling leaves on the line. This is not so. We reproduce here a reader’s letter to The Times newspaper of 6 November 2002 on page 32. The column is called Questions Answered.
Do other countries’ railway systems grind to a halt at the onset of autumn owing to a surprise fall of leaves on the line?
The simple answer is “yes”, but the public, press and media do not make a fuss about it.
Just as wet leaves on a pavement can cause loss of footing, they can cause steel wheels to lose firm contact with steel rails.
In Paris, commuters on some lines only too aware of autumn leaves on the line.
The Dutch know the problem as well and have been experimenting with the Sandite used in this country. In Germany, the Munich Stadtbahn usually gets stitched up at this time of the year – yes, leaves again.
And only the other week on the Oberammergau branch, the brand new trains had to be taken off as they cannot cope with…leaves on the line.
Thiry years ago in Sweden, it was not unknown for a special banking locomotive to be positioned at Norrkoping station to help southbound trains to start away in autumn because of the number of trees near the station.
The problem has worsened everywhere as we have become “greener”. There were not as many trees and bushes along railway lines years ago – steam locomotives regularly set fire to embankments and this helped to keep things under control.
However, even in those far-off days, it was not unknown for freight trains to take less tonnage in autumn when adhesion conditions were bad.
What’s my tree?
Oak: Quercus robur
Here comes the science bit:
A large tree (35 metres) with a wide crown, and broad bole bearing low branches at right articles. It is often planted in woods, parks and gardens.
What use is it?
Buildings, ships, barrels, furniture, wheel spokes, charcoal.
In autumn, acorns make useful missiles for throwing at people who annoy you. Also squirrels can use them as props for family pictures.
Hornbeam: Carpinus betulu
The science bit:
The hornbeam grows to 25 metres and has a fluted, buttressed bole, and grey bark with metallic-blue and pale brown veins. The leaves are dark green and glossy above and paler below, with a short red-brown petiole.
What use is it?
Butchers’ chopping blocks, shoe lasts, skittles, wooden screws, industrial cogs and pulleys. Pyromaniacs and bakers may like to note that the timber makes good fuel for bread ovens.
Ash:Fraxinus excelsior
Here comes the science bit:
With smooth grey bark and glabrous leaves that are green even in autumn, the ash grows up to 40 metres high and prefers damp, calcareous soil.
What use is it?
Wheel rims, ladder rungs, tool handles, oars, hockey sticks, tennis rackets and billiard cues. The timber is shock absorbent, and presumably ideal for making go karts, pogo sticks, heavyweight clubs and other so-called ‘blunt instruments’.
Sycamore: Acer pseudoplatanus
Here comes the science bit:
An abundant tree that tolerates salt spray and city pollution. It reaches around 35 metres in height and has smooth grey bark, which is whorled and cracked higher up.
What use is it?
Kitchen utensils, draining boards, rollers and furniture. The seeds are sometimes affectionately called ‘helicopters’, and because of the cool way they fall to the ground, can be a good way of getting children interested in nature. For about five minutes.
http://tube.tfl.gov.uk/content/faq/faqs/trees.asp