Sheep on the Line

People in Britain, and especially the press, are always amused and amazed when the railway is obstructed by foreign objects. The good old "X on the line" headline is rolled out. X stands "leaves" in the autumn, but in other seasons can stand for other object. Whatever the obstruction is, it gives cause for mockery of the second-rate railway in Britain. Everyone then agrees that this kind of thing wouldn't happen in civilised countries like Germany.

Well, last night a high-speed train on the Hamburg-Munich line hit a flock of 20 sheep and derailed inside a tunnel. A spokesman for the federal police in Koblenz explained that "It is an everyday event that a deer or a sheep is caught on the line and hit by a train", but that the unusually large number of sheep caused the train to derail. I wonder if there a german phrase, "To follow like sheep?"

This is of course not a new problem. Steam trains used to have a Cowcatcher on the front for such occasions. These have fallen out of fashion, which is a shame. It would be fun to see how far a sheep would be propelled by a 200km/h train fitted with a cowcatcher.

The Irish had another solution: On Irish rural lines one of the duties of the fireman "included pelting coal lumps at sheep on the line."

A rural line in Shropshire took a more relaxed approach.

One day, while travelling along the line, her train, which ran slowly enough at the best of times, juddered to a halt.She leaned out of the window and asked the driver what the problem was.

"Sheep on the line," came the reply.

After a few minutes the train started again, only to grind to a halt after a few hundred yards. "What's up this time," asked our impatient passenger.

"We've caught up the sheep,"

ps. Keen followers of my descent into denglish will like to know that I first wrote a "herd of sheep", but then noticed that it wasn't right. Germans have a herd of sheep, looked after by a sheep-herder. The English have shepherds who watch their flocks.