Matchless Lawns

I was in Naruto at lunchtime and as we drove over the Togane Line level crossing I couldn't help noticing how matchless lawns - or maybe even meadows! - rolled away on both sides of the road. It's quite a busy line - trains about every half hour - but by August JR East seem to give up entirely on weed control on its more rural lines. The rails had vanished into vegetation.

It reminded me of this postcard I bought a while back down in Boso Hanto - a recollection by a local artist of the trains of his youth in leafy Chiba-ken. Here a smokey 4620 Class 2-6-0 is picking it's way through the meadows on a summer's day back in the 1950's and the track simply isn't to be seen.

I wonder how they handle weed control these days. Over Stainmore in the 1950's they had a herbicide spray train in May and that was enough to see off our feeble northern English weeds. I can't image that it's all so innocent now.