Network Rail and South Western Railway are gearing up for Autumn with newly named leaf-buster, ‘Ctrl Alt Deleaf’, taking to the tracks.
Leaves are browning, autumn is around the corner and Network Rail alongside South Western Railway (SWR) are gearing up for its annual multi-million pound battle against Mother Nature and ‘leaves on the line’, aiming to keep millions of passengers and trains safe and moving over the next three months.
Network Rail has invested more than £100 million to tackle ‘leaves on the line’ – the annual scourge for Britain’s railways, and railways across the world – as damp, compressed leaves become the railway equivalent of black-ice on the road leading to slow running, delays and disruption.
Entering the fray is a new hero this season; ‘Ctrl Alt Deleaf’! This leaf-kicking train – named by the public in a nationwide vote – will roll out for the first time next week from a depot at Effingham Junction, Surrey, where it’s been showing off its flashy new autumn-themed look. Its mission, along with an entire fleet of similar leaf-busters, is to blast leaf-mulch off the rails – treating some 1.12 million miles over the autumn – to keep them clean and keep journeys running smoothly across the country.
This autumn, ‘Ctrl Alt Deleaf’ and its leaf-fighting partners cover close to 170,000 miles, almost seven times around the earth, across the Wessex route, which connects London with Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Devon.
‘Ctrl Alt Deleaf’ beat thousands of other contenders in the nationwide vote and saw-off other worthy contenders like ‘Leaf-Fall Weapon’, ‘Pulp Friction’, and ‘The Autumn Avenger’, to grab the top spot with half the votes.
The name reveal follows a public competition in which more than 1,300 individual name nominations were submitted before being whittled down to a shortlist of four by a judging panel of railway historian, author and presenter Tim Dunn, Rail Minister, Lord Hendy, and Network Rail’s industry weather response director, Lisa Angus and then put to a public vote.
Tim said: ‘It was fantastic to see so many members of the public get involved with naming a leaf-busting train.
“Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit a name and vote for a winner! The leaf-busting trains are a vital tool in Network Rail’s operation to tackle the impact of leaf fall on the railways. I’m delighted that the public has been able to honour these marvellous machines with such a fantastic name.’
