Question: will the train affect the wild life?

Natalie Wride answered on 13 Jun 2016:

Hi 838envf26 🙂

This is a great question – you’re already thinking like an Engineer! One of the important things Engineers have to think about when they build anything is how it impacts what’s there at the moment. To understand the environment before we build the train line, Engineering companies will do a big report called an Environmental Impact Assessment or Statement. In this, we look at the effects building the train line has on plants, wildlife, watercourses etc. It looks at both where it is being built and any effects this might have elsewhere. For instance, if we’re building a bridge over water does this affect the water course further along?

Wildlife can be a particularly difficult problem for construction projects, especially if there are protected species. Do you know any protected animal species? There’s lots of things we, as Engineers, do to make sure wildlife isn’t affected:

If the construction might destroy wildlife habitats, we make sure to build another habitat for them. So we might leave a patch of land with wildflowers that will encourage wildlife to move there or a reed bed for frogs and newts.
If there are nesting birds or badgers and other animals near the construction then we can’t build there. This might only be for a couple of months when birds are building their nests and their eggs are hatching. Once the season is finished then there is an inspection to make sure it is ok to build there. We also have things like newt and frog boxes which mean that we can catch them and move them to a new habitat to stop them getting hurt on the construction site.
Sometimes we build little tunnels beneath things like roads and railways (you might have seen them when you’re driving in the car!) that mean badgers, foxes, rabbits and hedgehogs can pass beneath the road like they did before it was built and tries to make sure they are not hit by any cars.

I hope this answers your question! There’s lots of things we can do to try and protect the wildlife 🙂 If we do this during construction then when the trains are running, the wildlife should be safe.