Volume 33

The British railway system is being raked by a colourful but serious problem that’s causing scheduling and safety problems: leaves.

According to news reports, fallen leaves are making powerful locomotives spin their wheels, slow to a crawl and clog the lines for those behind them. Delays are making it harder for thousands of commuters to get where they need to go and there’s a danger some cars could slide off the rails entirely.

The problem starts when autumn leaves land on the tracks. When the first train runs over them, it turns the leaves into a Teflon-type material similar to black ice on roads. The slippery substance makes it hard for heavy trains to get traction. Even when they do finally get rolling, drivers have to brake earlier for every stop and pull away from each station much more slowly. Even the most routine journeys now take much longer.

The scope of the problem becomes obvious when you consider that a single trackside tree has between 10,000 and 50,000 leaves. Literally thousands of tonnes fall on railway lines each years and Britain has 21,000 miles of tracks to keep clear. It’s estimated that autumn costs the industry about 50 million pounds or roughly $100 million annually. Similar problems have been reported in Canada, the U.S., Sweden, France and Germany.

But the railways are making sweeping changes. In the last two years, they’ve reduced leaf-related delays by 60 per cent thanks to new technology and preventive maintenance. Network Rail, which is responsible for British tracks, uses 32 specially equipped trains to spread a sand-based gel on rail lines to increase wheel grip. Those trains also have high pressure water jets that blow off the crushed leaves. In addition to 90 cleanup crews who clear trouble spots, others prune trackside trees or cut them down entirely.

Interestingly, the leaf dilemma is a relatively new problem. In times past, sparks from steam engines started fires and kept trees and bushes from thriving next to rail lines. But since the switch to diesel, many deciduous trees have seeded themselves and flourished alongside the train corridors. On a spiritual level, this story reminds us to prevent things from the past from interfering with progress we need to make here and now. Just as autumn leaves die and make way for new life, things like pain, loss, guilt and regret must be dealt with and swept aside to ensure they don’t delay or derail our journey toward wholeness and holiness.

So often though, we let emotional barriers slow us down because — like the leaves — they don’t seem like much of a threat, at least at first. But when we ignore or bury pain from the past, the slippery residue of bitterness and resentment becomes inescapable. It leaves us spinning our wheels, forces us to jam on the brakes way too early in our relationships, and makes it harder for us to get any real momentum as we try to go from one level of growth to another. Sometimes, unresolved issues from the past can send our spirituality off the tracks entirely.

The solution is preventive maintenance on the heart. To stop the slippery and insidious buildup of emotional turmoil, we must apply a gritty coating of faith to give our love more grip and traction. Faith reminds us that we’re a much-loved child of God, and that forgiveness, healing and change are always possible. We must also let the power of God’s living water, the Holy Spirit, blast away every last trace of the fear, doubt and self-condemnation that would hold us back.

But it’s not enough to keep pruning back the branches of bitter self-rebuke that reach from the past into our current life and relationships. Eventually, we have to cut down the tree. That takes time and intention, work and worship — worship that reminds us we can’t change on our own. If we’ll do what we must to be free from the past and find new traction for the journey, our spirituality will stay on track.

By Rick Gamble. Published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications. To subscribe to this free weekly article, send a note to Rick at rgamble@bfree.on.ca