What are the best practices for right of way weed control?

Contract with a professional railroad herbicide application contractor. They know the applicable regulatory requirements in your location, and have the permits, liability insurance, trained personnel, and proper equipment to do the job correctly. This is really not a "DIY" item for vegetation control on a railroad right of way.

I'm speaking from 25+ years of experience in this area.

Howard P.

The railroad I retired from used professional contractors who had full knowledge and compliance with the various environmental and workplace safety regulations for chemical spraying.

We had a pre-emergence spraying program (before vegetation started growing in the spring) and a followup spray program later in the growing season. There was also a separate brush spraying program. Each of the three programs used different herbicides tailored to the target vegetation.

It also helped that the track bed did not have much dirt contaminating the ballast, and that the program has been in effect for many years reduces the seed load in the track bed.

Brian

Edit 1

It would probably save you mobilization charges if you could piggyback on another railroad spray program nearby.

https://rwcincorporated.com/

https://asplundh.com/services/?market_s ... #mark_serv

Hmm, the other contractor I dealt with a lot appears to be out of business.

Edit 2

Since much of the spraying equipment is mounted on high rail vehicles - are you standard gauge track - or have passable driving access to the track?

Here's a nice rig for smaller operations. Just need to find someone who knows what they're doing with it...

https://www.customtruck.com/blog/the-sp ... l-vehicle/

.

"Through the weeds, and not around them..."

I'm not a professional so what follows is worth exactly as much as the paper it isn't written on, but I do have about a decade of self-taught groundskeeping experience at our site.

There are some really powerful and nasty pre-emergent or 'soil sterilizer' products out there but you have to be really careful with them, especially in areas with slopes, a high water table, or near wetlands and waterways (i.e. most railway museums). And watch the weather, a fellow volunteer who worked for Trans-Canada Pipelines has a story about treating one of their sites with one such chemical, only for it to rain soon after and spread into an adjacent farm field. TC was then required to dig up and replace the top layer of soil over much of a quarter section at great expense. The product in this story contained a chemical called bromacil, which I later found out had been used on a part of our site 20 or 30 years ago (presumably when regulations were a bit looser), and it is still having a noticeable effect in places. I wouldn't dare try using it myself.

I've had good results this year using Roundup and 2,4-D around our shop, both are legal in my province and are sold in the gardening/lawn care aisle at Canadian Tire. But they are not pre-emergents, so you still have to wait for the plants to start growing and then of course end up with an ugly bunch of dead stuff. And have to repeat the process every year. It also takes a week or two before their effect becomes really noticeable.

Considering the amount of hours that can get eaten up by weed control, it definitely makes sense to hire an outside expert to take care of this problem.

Anyone ever try what BART is doing with goats: https://www.rtands.com/passenger/think- ... ink-again/
$800 to 1,200 per acre seems a bit pricey, but you may have better luck with abutters, I know of a small railroad that ended up being sued because a neighbor thought the railroad had sprayed his land (turned out his lawn was about 6' on the railroad ROW).

You want something that kills the seeds before they sprout to keep the roots out of the ballast. Goats may be effective in brush areas adjacent to the track, but not on the track. We use the same contractor every year. They give us a call and tell us when they are going to be there. This changes sometimes depending on the wind. But this way the contractor can schedule in the museum when he has other jobs in the area. We have to support his work by pulling cars out of all the sidings so they can get into spray. This is a hi rail rig, so some other areas are also sprayed not using track access.

In the wildland fire reduction community this is sometimes called Prescribed herbivory

A few years ago we switched to handling herbicide application ourselves, due to rising cost of contracting and the inability of our contractor to schedule timely application. In Pennsylvania this requires training, certification and insurance, all of which we have successfully dealt with. While I'm sure our folks would be happy to see us return to a contractor arrangement and save tying up personnel and equipment, for now the cost savings and flexibility justify this approach.

- Alan Maples
Everett Railroad

Previous thread on the same topic:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=39214&hilit=weed+control+spray

The railroad I volunteered at used a well known contractor (although I cannot remember their name) and had a deal worked out where we would get on their schedule when they were scheduled to spray the local G&W lines around us. I believe this cut the cost down for us.