How do leaves falling from trees onto railway tracks turn to teflon?

[dotty.]

I've read the notices on the train every day but it is still too bizarre to take in!

[Buenchico]

From the Network Rail website:
"Leaf mulch forms a hard teflon-like coating on the tracks causing trains to slip and slide. This delays the trains and can damage both track and train"
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/1041.aspx
(See the right-hand column of that page for the full article).

[dotty.]

That's what they have posted on the trains in all te carriages, but it is a genius reason for trains running late, it's been appalling this last 2 weeks, cancellations and delays, tonight the conductor apologised to the whole carriage full of commutors and said it has been a very short leave-dropping season this year which has condensed all the usual problems into a few days.

They'll tell us owt

[Buenchico]

You've forced me to think of all the (perfectly genuine) reasons I had to announce for train delays when I ran a station. They included:

1. A swan on the tracks
2. A fallen tree on the tracks
3. A fire on a passenger train (twice)
4. Suicides (at least one per month)
5. 'Bridge bashes' (where a road vehicle had struck a railway bridge - quite frequent).
6. An abandoned car inside the gates at a level crossing.
7. The Orient Express being in the wrong place on the tracks
8. The signaller sending a train down the wrong line
9. Police chasing an offender along the tracks
10. Police boarding a train to deal with an offence
11. The brakes jamming on an empty composite train (which was due to split into four separate services and managed to get stuck across the mainline tracks, bringing a total of 6 different services to a halt).
12. Overhead line power failures due to vandalism.
13. Overhead line failures due to the cables being ripped down by a train.
14 Theft of signalling equipment.
15. A train in the sidings set on fire by vandals.
16. Children on or near the tracks (frequent)
17. Lineside fires.
18. Ice on the tracks.
19. Flooding on the tracks.
20. High winds.
21. Fog
22. "Volume of passengers"
23. Platform overcrowding.
24. "Loading an exceptionally large number of bicycles"
25. Awaiting crew from other delayed services.
26. Mechanical failure.
27. Awaiting connections
28. Fire alarm sounding in the signal box (resulting in all signals being set to red)

I didn't really need any leaves on the tracks in order to find a reason for delays ;-)

[ELVIS68]

People will always moan about delays, they`d moan even more if the train they was on derailed

[AlBags]

Well at Banbury once, a jokey guy on the PA announced a driver had left lunch box behind, so train was late.