Yesterday the news broke that Network Rail is going to
have to spend ‘millions’ on protecting it’s essential cables
and wiring from the UK’s rodent population.
Apparently the damage done by mice, rats and other small rodents amounts to millions of pounds of compensation
which needs to be paid out to train operating companies.
In a way this is a similar problem to cable theft. As far as
we know, the mice are only eating little bits of cable rather than selling it on in large amounts to scrap metal merchants. Therefore, surely this problem can be addressed in the
same way, by either burying the cables or keeping them in reinforced troughing?
And according to my Network Rail sources, this kind of
work is already under way in places, so it looks like the rodents may have to find another place to dine.
