three reasons:
1 - the more effective and longer lasting weed control agents have been removed from the market - sometimes for very good reasons. Remember Agent Orange. I watched UP replace the top 12 inches of dirt and yards of a large area of homes in Pocatello ID because someone decided to spray on a windy day.
2 - the most effective, available weed control agents are much, much more expensive than the older methods - so MOW has to decide whether to spend the money on spraying or other maintenance. One derailment can blow the MOW budget for the whole summer and there goes the spray program.
3 - the increased moisture patterns this year in many areas have both reduced the available spraying days and have reduced the effectiveness of the spraying that has been done. Nothing is more frustrating that to just have sprayed a section - only to watch a thunder storm roll in a wa***he spray off the weeds. The older materials were soil impacting so rain would not reduce the effectiveness as much. The newer materials are vegetation impacting so a little rain and the spray effect is gone.
At least these are the reasons I am using for the weeds in my lawn[;)]
Mudchicken: Don’t know what Atratol is, but we used to use a mixture down on the farm that was said to be basically the same as Agent Orange - it was 2,4,-D and 2,4,5,-T mixed in about equal proportion. Only thing I ever saw that would kill honeysuckle. It would darn sure kill everything else; I think some plants died if you walked by them with the mix in a sprayer. Good stuff!
In an account of the “Gee Whiz,” the Glenfield and Western, which ran on the east slope of the Tug Hill region of NY state, was mention of a weed control device that sounded pretty much like today’s flail mowers and was reportedly better at raising dust than cutting down the weeds…
Memories from when I was a kid dictate that the Wabash MUST have mown their right of way through town, because I can remember the raised road beds having neatly tailored sides, all the way down to ground level (the tracks being on the crest of a raised roadbed approx 18’ high)
Nowadays, the sides are just covered with scrub, weeds, and invasive “junk” trees, and looks just absolutely awful…And NS seems to only clear about 6 feet to either side of the tracks with their bush hoggie thing.
I have to wonder if the absence of passenger service on these lines compared to 1960’s and earlier might be a factor in the RR’s willingness to neglect weed control?
The City where I live has recently put it’s zoning control patrol goons onto high alert to post and cite weed control violations in private property. And I have seen many a house get the red violation tags. I wonder whay the city isn’t tagging the neglected railway sides?
To be serious, I don’t know why they can’t get the prison system into cutting the weed near the tracks. Prisoners used to do odds and ends instead of now sitting on their butts waiting for their sentence to finnish courtesy of taxpayers money.
If the railroads aren’t going to hire enough folk to keep it maintained due to them wishing to conserve their money for other things then it wouldn’t be doing unionized workers out of work so in theory (likely not in practice), this should be a good idea as it may not violate collective agreements-I don’t really know actually.
Nice idea, but RR’s are private property, not like when you see the DOC with a gang of guys cleaning the hiways/Interstates around here. That would be my guess, I mean think of the yells using inmates to do private sector work.
Also they may jump the first train out of town [8D]
Didn’t they used to do that awhile back or did they make it illegal since if they did it at all? I could have sworn I heard of private sector involvement with certain prison work programs.
Some years back, I lived in Gillette Wyoming. There, they had the jail inmates pick up garbage in the road ditches. The guys would be wearing orange jumpsuits, shackled ankle to ankle, in groups of four, each carrying a garbage bag! It was something right out of an old Burt Reynolds movie!
I don’t know where NSrailfan has been lately but The NS line was lots of weeds in lots of spots. Plus the those thorn bushes they hurt when you just want to railfan by the tracks.
Up here in cheese-land we’ve actually had a rather dry summer, but yet some of those pesky weeds still pop up. Good point on the permit process, the local talk radio has had a couple topics on some of the ridiculous changes in environmental regulations on street medians!, that has resulted in the medians becoming overgrown with weeds and are now driving safety hazards!
Another idea is that the more the railroads use chemicals to control the weeds, the more chemical-resistant weeds will grow on the right-of-way! Only solution is for new chemicals to be developed, and that probably won’t be happening anytime soon!
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QUOTE: Originally posted by dthurman
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QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan
To be serious, I don’t know why they can’t get the prison system into cutting the weed near the tracks. Prisoners used to do odds and ends instead of now sitting on their butts waiting for their sentence to finnish courtesy of taxpayers money.
If the railroads aren’t going to hire enough folk to keep it maintained due to them wishing to conserve their money for other things then it wouldn’t be doing unionized workers out of work so in theory (likely
HA! the weeds are completelyhorrible this year. I fi go through my papers- I have a document released by the RTC that indicates…
I’ll translate it to english…roughly…
…08/24/2005…
…Watch signal 56 (5-6 Double restrictive) (mile3.2 Vaudreuil Sub) well,shrubbs have engulfed it and made it very difficult to distinguish it’s proper indication…
It’s true-I have seen it many times,it is indeed at the bottom of a slight donward grade, so weeds half way down the hill and right near it make it almost impossible to make out. Sometimes,during the day, you can onlymake it out once your 10-25 feet away from it.
Is NS doing a system wide right-of-way clean up? Because down here NS is cutting the right-of-way way back from the tracks around crossings. And they are putting up a crossbuck with a stop sign at every crossing not protected with flashing lights or gates.
I remember (this is nearly 40 years ago) the GTW using a solid weedkiller on our line–tiny purplish pellets. I don’t know whether it depended on rain to dissolve it, but it certainly did the job!