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When sometimes it's hard to hold it all together!
26 July 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
Railway Sleepers Could Explode! THIEVES who raided an engineering yard in Bedworth have been warned by police: "The stolen railway sleepers could kill you!". The strong-armed raiders stole 50 wooden railway sleepers fitted with special compressed air units. Police today issued an urgent safety appeal, warning the culprits that they are risking serious injury - or even death - if they tamper with the railway sleepers.
24 July 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
Kiwis buy "dodgy" railway sleepers! HEADS should roll at Kiwi Rail after they imported wooden railway sleepers infested with Alien fungi not found in New Zealand, says minority party New Zealand First. Kiwi Rail imported 100,000 railway sleepers. Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee said that 7000 railway sleepers had "some degree of decay" and were being replaced.
10 July 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
Old nappies will be turned into Railway Sleepers under new recycling scheme. Babies go through an average of four nappies every day. Now used nappies will be turned into railway sleepers under a new recycling scheme being trialled in Scotland. Each year some 160 million nappies are sent to Scottish rubbish dumps. But four councils are to trial a kerbside collection scheme for 36,000 homes across Fife, Stirling, Perth and Kinross and North Lanarkshire.
08 July 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
£300 million project includes special badger homes from Railway Sleepers.
THOUSANDS of pounds will be spent relocating hundreds of residents living in the path of the new Borders Railway and building new homes from railway sleepers. Several badger setts have been identified by wildlife experts along the 35-mile route and a £10,000 pot has been set aside to provide the nocturnal hunters with alternative accommodation due to the threat the works pose to their habitat. Artificial badger homes are to be created in order to move them to safety.
A full-time badger expert has now been drafted in to oversee the project which will see identical but roomier setts, comprising numerous chambers and tunnels, constructed from railway sleepers & pipes and then covered in soil up to a metre deep to hide them from view. Tasty treats will be used to encourage the animals to visit the new setts, and once the entire clan has moved in access to their previous home will be blocked.
SNH licensing manager Ben Ross said: “Each sett can vary in size and the number of badgers it contains so depending on factors such as these, each artificial sett could cost between £200-£300 and £1000 to construct. Relocations such as this are quite common when large capital projects are being built. It basically involves digging a large hole and then constructing a series of tunnels and chambers using railway sleepers and large pipes. Badgers are creatures of habit and use the same paths to get about at night so the likelihood is that if you build a new sett, they will inevitably investigate it. You’d think that they would reject the idea and look to return to their own original sett, but if the sett is built correctly and offers more room, then the badgers seem very happy to take up residence.
Under laws protecting badgers, work cannot be carried out within 30 metres of a known sett and approval has to be gained from SNH for its removal. The £300 million scheme is the largest rail reopening project in modern UK history and the line is due to open in summer 2015.
07 July 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
The Civil Guard raided a farmhouse last week, where a man had stored over 300 stolen railway sleepers valued at 4852 euros. The theft took place from railway lines running around the town of Santa Fe de Mondújar. The offender was identified as FMMG, 55 years of age and a resident of Viator.
Railway sleepers have been disappearing from the area for some time. The Guardia Civil have been aware of the problem for some time. As well as gathering information, they have been carrying out regular visual inspections of the railway Linares Baeza-Almeria, in the Rambla de Gérgal, as well as searching a number of remote outlying buildings.
All of this has ultimately led to the identification and arrest the offender aas well as the recovery of the stolen railway sleepers valued by ADIF at 4851.92 euros.
The information gathered by agents led them to a farm located about two kilometers from the town where they found a warehouse in which the back there were a large number of railway sleepers, with the the same characteristics of those stolen. There was a mound of concrete debris which had been broken into small pieces, allowing the perpetrator to extract the metal content inside.
The Civil Guard officers focused their efforts in locating the owner of the property, who they identified as FMMG. He was then arrested on suspicion of a crime of theft.
The prosecution initiated by the Civil Guard, will be carried out in the Magistrate's Court No. 1 of Almeria.
06 July 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
Five men who abused their positions as railway contractors to steal up to £1.5 million of track and railway sleepers, have been jailed for a total of 11 years and 9 months.
Two other men were also given suspended sentences of 21 months for their involvement.
John Burtenshaw, Terence Doherty, Neil Jones, Stuart Amphett, Nicky Halloran, Paul Tandon and Roy Skinner were all sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court this morning.
The court heard that Terry Doherty, a co-director of BRP (Rugby) Ltd – sub-contracted by Jarvis to remove rail, conspired with John Burtenshaw, Jarvis plant manager, to steal rail and railway sleepers which should have been taken to authorised recyclers with Network Rail receiving the value of the materials.
An investigation by British Transport Police found that Doherty and Burtenshaw used their position to steal up 3,500 tonnes of rail track and railway sleepers worth up to £1.5m.
Detective Sergeant Chris Hearn says it was one of the biggest investigations he has ever worked on, and the men sentenced for stealing railway lines and railway sleepers had no care for the railway whatsoever.
“There is no doubt that the actions of this organised group deprived Network Rail and, in turn rail users across the country, of valuable finance which could have been put towards maintenance and improvements.
Neil Henry, Network Rail's head of operations and performance, said: "The value of the material stolen is wasted money as far as Network Rail is concerned. That's £1.5m that could otherwise have been spent on additional passenger facilities at stations or perhaps invested in technology to improve reliability of the railway.
"I hope the sentences today make others stop and think before they consider stealing vital equipment from the railway.
05 July 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
HUNDREDS of timber railway sleepers have been stolen from Melbourne's rail network and used as firewood, despite government health warnings. Firewood Association Australia secretary Alan McGeevy said he had received several complaints from people who had burnt the railway sleepers in open fires, barbecues and pizza ovens. ''What alerted us, was people calling saying ,'I'm burning this railway sleeper and I've got a bleeding nose and stinging eyes and feel like I've got asthma','' he said.
05 July 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
WITNESSES are being sought following the theft of a number of railway sleepers from Rhosneigr beach, Anglesey. Sometime between Tuesday, March 5 and the evening of Friday, March 15 thieves removed 12 wooden railway sleepers from the side of a beach house close to the River Crygyll at the airfield end of the beach. The railway sleepers are 7 foot long and formed part of the sea defenses of the house.
18 May 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
Several years ago, my friend Vernon approached me and asked if he could build a boat from scratch in the corner of our railway sleeper yard. I imagined planks of oak, or fibreglass, or sheets of steel or at least railway sleepers!! But not for Vernon! He decided on a New Zealand designed boat made from steel rods and concrete. Yes, concrete! We humoured him of course, as most people do with their friends, but as it happens our .....
11 May 2013 / Posted in: OFF THE RAILS !
Wooden beds made from railway sleepers look great, but it helps to take them off the track first! The man used the track as a pillow and had his feet inches from the live rail at Epsom, Surrey. Trains were disrupted and police filmed the former company director, 48, from a helicopter as he slept in March. Neither the sound of the helicopter nor passing trains could wake the man, who admitted obstructing