Attacking UK’s coal transport system — Severing the lines that feed the machine

Sev­er­ing the lines that feed the machine is not impos­si­ble. When peo­ple take up civ­il upris­ing in the UK, if peo­ple are able to shove their oblig­a­tions to one side to open up an avenue, they main­ly have the abil­i­ty and pos­si­bil­i­ty to be able to grasp their will for some­thing new. The war is not over when those moments stop, it sparks up in lit­tle rap­tures here and there, show­ing that we are not crushed, things can be brought to a grind­ing halt again, even for a split sec­ond.

It just takes a few bright spir­its and we see it clear, when the smug con­fi­dence of author­i­ties is knocked, a few pins get hit out and things can be seen in a dif­fer­ent light. Out of synch and off bal­ance, every­thing no longer appears struc­tural­ly sound, life feels more up for grabs.

The new hori­zon peaked through our cloudy day, Sun­day 6th March, and we hope this uncom­pli­cat­ed act of sab­o­tage we have under­tak­en expos­es the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of their com­plex matrix.

We took a risk assess­ment and as night just start­ed to close in we entered the 1st rail­way tun­nel, we cut both lines with a portable disc cut­ter, we did­n’t imag­ine de-rail­ing a loco­mo­tive but wreck­ing dis­rup­tion and eco­nom­ic dam­age (time is mon­ey). We entered a 2nd and did a fur­ther two cuts, mark­ing them all with pink paint, and leav­ing a ban­ner as a warn­ing.

The line in ques­tion runs through the Avon Gorge from Roy­al Port­bury Dock over from Avon­mouth, it’s freight only (no pas­sen­gers), 70% of the UK’s import­ed coal for pow­er gen­er­a­tion comes through these docks. This line is a bot­tle-neck to the coun­try’s dis­per­sal. Most of it from USA where they blow apart moun­tains to get it out and Rus­sia from the Shor and Teleut ances­tral lands laid waste in Siberia, also places like Indone­sia which dri­ve back the forests for sprawl­ing mines and plan­ta­tions. That’s to keep fac­to­ries run­ning and city lights on, when we’ve got a feel­ing for escap­ing the work pris­ons and regain­ing the stars. Oth­er loads car­ried on the line include con­struc­tion aggre­gate and new built vehi­cles on their way to the show room. More high-speed train­lines are com­ing to the UK, more roads, more ancient wood­land and wildlife wiped out in the fren­zy of progress.

After see­ing the firey activ­i­ties against the coal flow in the Ham­bach for­est of Ger­many since New Years — don’t give up the fight!, or the cut­ting of the coal belt in Scot­land some years back by per­sons unknown when the bat­tles against coal min­ing raged, we realise we’re not orig­i­nal. It’s not even the first time for eco-sab­o­tage ambush­es on that line from Port­bury or the trou­ble­some car­go, over the years. We see attacks fol­low­ing attacks on train­lines in dif­fer­ent coun­tries, it’s with­in reach to hin­der the cir­cuits pow­er­ing the giant, we just have to har­ness our courage, keep an eye peeled for soft spots, maybe start­ing small but always dream­ing big. Right now we’re read­ing about eco­nom­ic dam­age this month from train­line sabo­teurs in the north of Spain, we affirm our sol­i­dar­i­ty and respect too for the anar­chists there with show­case court cas­es or police atten­tion oth­er­wise, we laugh to hear about the row­dy spir­its that keep up when repressed for the fight to reject domin­ion. Maybe the sparks kicked up in the train tun­nels even reflect­ed over the Alps and beyond to light the sky for those in dark cells for try­ing to stop high-speed cap­i­tal­ism and also its nano-world tech­nolo­gies.

Join­ing our strength with the near and dis­tant tribes, refusal and attack! Block the flows, up the fight­ers!

Toward a life that’s wild and free from coal, quar­ries, cars or cops. Avon Gorge sab­o­tage group “Sand In The Gears”, sign­ing out.….