The nature found by Britain's railways

(Image credit: Alamy)

Train travel has changed enormously since the poet Edward Thomas made his famous unscheduled stop at Adlestrop in 1914 and found himself surrounded by ‘willows… meadowsweet and haycocks dry… [and] all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire’. However, the denizens of the natural world that exist in the land around railways are still gloriously — and surprisingly — diverse.

Often referred to as ‘green corridors’, the 20,000 miles of rail track criss-crossing Britain have become a refuge for many endangered species, including the great crested newt, the hazel dormouse and sand lizards. Most of the UK’s 18 species of bats use railway tunnels and bridges for roosting, badgers create homes in embankments and hedges and edges provide both cover for small animals and food for pollinators. The rail-network estate is something of a paradox in this respect: manmade, yet largely free of human interference; both wild and, today, the subject of careful stewardship.

The story begins in 1825, when the Stockton and Darlington Railway — the world’s first public passenger route, served by steam trains — opened and the modern age of rail began. By the 1850s, almost all of the main routes on the railways had been established and, as fingers of countryside appeared in built-up areas, wildlife started to appear. During the Steam Age, vegetation alongside the track had to be carefully managed to avoid fires, but the later diesel and electric trains reduced the need for such oversight and the railway verges entered a period of benign neglect that allowed biodiversity to flourish.

'An old disused siding has been transformed into an environment for sand lizards'

‘The rail-network estate is a very long, thin slice through the countryside,’ notes Dr Neil Strong, Network Rail’s biodiversity strategy manager. ‘Which, when condensed, is roughly 1½ times the size of the Isle of Wight. The lineside habitat plays a vital role in connecting otherwise fragmented habitats — we’ve also used satellite data to look beyond the fence so we can work with local landowners to increase biodiversity even further.’

In Buckinghamshire, a project involving the charity Butterfly Conservation and local wildlife groups has transformed land near the tracks in High Wycombe to encourage a colony of the rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly to extend into a new area. Meanwhile, in Lancashire in 2022, a tiny silver metal tube became the first hazel dormouse bridge across a UK railway successfully connecting two separate populations. Further south, in Chichester, West Sussex, another initiative has created a wildlife corridor for the local bat population: bat boxes have been placed in trackside trees and some disused buildings along the tracks have been converted into bat houses.

‘It’s about working with Nature,’ adds Neil. ‘If work needs to be carried out near a badger sett, the animals are carefully moved to an alternative area using a one-way gate. When trees are cut for safety on the line, the trunks are modified in a process called “veteranisation”; to add fake lightning strikes and woodpecker holes for tiny creatures to crawl into.’ At stations, volunteer-led projects have created hundreds of platform gardens buzzing with plants for pollinators and the GTR (Govia Thameslink Railway) has teamed up with the Bee Friendly Trust to create 200 homes for Nature to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the modern railway. Each site will have two types of bird boxes, striped-bee hotels for solitary insects and hibernacula for small animals and bugs.

In East Anglia, volunteers have transformed an area of land equivalent to 34 tennis courts into eco-friendly station gardens that have recorded more than 200 different species. Other stations have developed local specific projects. In the Peak District, the Buzzing Stations programme is providing habitats for the endangered bilberry bumblebee native to the area and at Wareham, Dorset, an old disused siding has been transformed into an environment for sand lizards after they were discovered on an old track bed. At Mersham near Ashford in Kent, a colony of bees looked after by Eurostar employees alongside HS1 supplies honey for use onboard trains.

A GWR intercity train goes past a bank of wildflowers

Many trackside species arrive spontaneously. In 2021, refurbishment to a Grade I-listed bridge in North Wales had to be delayed due to a peregrine falcon nesting in a tower and, in 2024, a family of foxes took up residence under a hut at the end of Platform 8 in Brighton, East Sussex. Every year, a colony of house martins return to nest in an old signal box at Salisbury, Wiltshire, where they rear several broods.

Throughout the network, there are countless incidents of trespassing fauna. Deer are serial offenders, followed by sheep, but among the more unexpected visitors recorded are hedgehogs, a llama and a tortoise. Unsurprisingly, some of the richest habitats for wildlife lie within the thousands of miles of disused railway tracks around the country.

More than 60 years on from the infamous Beeching Report of 1963, which saw the demise of almost one-third of Britain’s rural stations, the railway’s loss has been Nature’s gain: these forgotten corridors have been transformed into linear wildlife havens. Tranquil cuttings now reverberate with the sound of grasshoppers and clouds of steam have become clouds of butterflies. Crumbling viaducts are perfect high-rise nest sites and, in late summer, the old embankments are heaped with the fruit of brambles, elder, rowan and dogrose.

Among the best examples are Halwill Junction, now owned by Devon Wildlife Trust, which in spring is carpeted with purple violets, the Lines Way in Yorkshire, featuring wild orchids and glowworms, and the Sewell Cutting in Bedfordshire, now a magical reserve of chalk grassland flowers. More recently, 3.2 million tons of soil left over from the Crossrail construction was used to create Wallasea Island, a new nature reserve in Essex. In spring, spoonbills may be spotted sifting through the saline lagoons and black-tailed godwits use the shallow pools as migration refuelling stations.

'After 200 years, we are now beginning to recognise the benefits that working with Nature can bring'

Conflicts of interest can and do arise. From midsummer onwards, the entire rail network turns purple with the arrival of the buddleia. The bushes, which can reach heights of 16ft, march across tracks and dangle precariously from bridges. The long lilac cones of flowers are loved by butterflies and it’s not unusual for a bush to contain as many as 50 individuals of up to 10 different species.

However, the love is not shared by railway engineers, who have to deal with obscured signals, interrupted power lines and uprooted masonry. Train tracks can also facilitate the spread of invasive species. Oxford ragwort, which famously raced along the railway in the 1830s after escaping from the Oxford Botanic Garden, still romps all over the rails in every part of the UK and, in late summer, it is joined by the tall pink spires of rosebay willowherb. Less common is the Deptford pink, which thrives in disturbed dry soil alongside the track in Saltash, Devon, in one of only 15 sites in the country.

Today, rail-network operators find themselves facing two challenges: improving biodiversity and building resilience to the extreme weather of climate change. Happily, Nature provides win-win solutions. ‘Slowing the water flow from hills by planting trees and hedges not only reduces flood risk, but provides essential habitat for plants and animals,’ points out Neil. ‘Meanwhile, using trees to create shaded areas around stations, in combination with well-designed planting on station forecourts, provides new [habitats] in urban centres, as well as helping to cool the areas during the summer.'

'After 200 years, we are now beginning to recognise the benefits that working with Nature can bring.'

Vicky Liddell is a nature and countryside journalist from Hampshire who also runs a herb nursery.