Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the amount, to the nearest one million tons, of (1) steel railway lines, (2) sacks of rubble, and (3) concrete sleepers and other concrete items, which are unused and lying on or beside railway lines or in sidings; what estimate they have made of the number of railway items littering railway property; and what plans Network Rail have to remove, sell or dispose of these items.

Network Rail needs to keep a supply of strategically placed rail on the network for track renewal and replacement, but it is also committed to removing excess scrap material from lineside, when commercially viable, to make the railway safer, higher performing and less visually impactful to customers and neighbours. Once routes have identified material for collection, it can either be recycled or reused on the infrastructure through three material handling depots, or it can be sold to wider markets.

Network Rail presently does not hold information on the amounts of these lineside materials.