{"id":609,"date":"2017-04-24T00:01:52","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T06:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/?p=609"},"modified":"2020-02-15T19:31:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T02:31:00","slug":"a-novel-take-on-the-milk-train-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/2017\/04\/24\/a-novel-take-on-the-milk-train-concept\/","title":{"rendered":"A Novel Take on the Milk Train Concept"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the late \u201880s or early \u201890s, whoever it was that was running the over-ground rail network in England came out with a series of much-mocked (but valid) reasons for late and cancelled services. Autumn leaves<\/a> made the wheels slip on the rails, reducing traction; and \u201cthe wrong type of snow<\/a>\u201d caused the trains\u2019 electric motors to short-circuit.<\/p>\n

These are memorable events for Brits (and ex-Brits), so when the headline<\/a>, \u201cTrains delayed by cows on the line in Kent\u201d presented itself to me, I couldn\u2019t help myself\u2014I had to find out more! Were they the wrong type of cows?\u00a0 Was their poop making the lines slippery?<\/p>\n

Nothing so happily coincidental. Turns out it was just a herd of cattle that had escaped from wherever they had been ruminating, and were heading up the track towards a tunnel. Unlike Canadian locos, UK trains aren\u2019t fitted with cowcatchers; but even if they were, I wonder if one would have been up to the task of catching sixty in one go.<\/p>\n

The name \u201ccowcatcher\u201d is actually a bit of a misnomer; it doesn\u2019t catch, so much as scoop to one side (now there\u2019s a ready-made excuse for a poorly-performing baseball backstop). Also, cowcatchers (in my part of Canada, anyway) are more frequently called upon to scoop aside fallen branches, the occasional deer, elk or moose (I guess), and maybe, just maybe, a cow. They have been known to scoop cars and such as well, but pursuing that thought would be descending too far into macabre humour.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article features a picture of the cattle lined up on the station platform at Hever (which sounds just enough like heifer for me (and many Twitterers) to point out with no shame whatsoever). Their orientation and general body language make them look like regular commuters waiting for the train, but the photographer\u2019s tweet is littered with comments containing every conceivable cow-related pun known to man (or woman), so I won\u2019t lower myself by including any here.<\/p>\n

The BBC article doesn\u2019t explain how the cattle were convinced to leave the track and line up on the platform, but this being something that happened in the garden of England, I guess they weren\u2019t herded there by a beaver.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the ****!\u201d I hear you say.<\/p>\n

For an explanation, read this CBC report<\/a> which includes a video of a herd of cattle in Saskatchewan following a beaver. (And yes, apparently they were heifers.)<\/p>\n

It seems that Canada has much to offer the British rail network\u2014technology to keep motors snow-free (irrespective of which of 31 flavours); beavers to keep cattle lodged safely out of the way of trains, and cowcatchers for those pesky cows that refuse to adopt the herd mentality and follow the beefed beaver. (Okay\u2014that was too much of a stretch from \u201cPied Piper\u201d.)<\/p>\n

And the cure for those autumn leaves? Do what we do here\u2014grow conifers near the rail tracks.<\/p>\n

There. Problems solved.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the late \u201880s or early \u201890s, whoever it was that was running the over-ground rail network in England came out with a series of much-mocked (but valid) reasons for late and cancelled services. Autumn leaves made the wheels slip on the rails, reducing traction; and \u201cthe wrong type of snow\u201d caused the trains\u2019 electric motors to short-circuit. These… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[664,336,339,335,338,337],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fake","tag-500words","tag-beaver-herding-cattle","tag-cowcatcher","tag-cows-on-railway","tag-hever","tag-wrong-type-of-snow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1543,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions\/1543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}